
Class 



Book 



COPYRIGHTF DEPOSIT 



'U 



ri 



AN UP-TO-DATE GUIDE: 

KLONDIKE DISTRICT 

YUKON VALLtY 





Rand,McNally&Co 
Publishers. 

CHICAGO AND Ep|^£j^T INGERSOLL 



NEW YORK 



<il(.b.- I.il.n.iv, Vol I. X". -iM. Aujr. 16 IS9;. »i.\V,.,|ilv Y.-nr 87.IK). 
Knii-iid ut ('hicii|;<> I'ost OlHci' iis scronjl-class iiinttt-r. 



North American 
Transportation and 
Trading Company 




000 



DIRECTORS... 

JOHN J. HEALY, Dawson, Klondike Gold Fields 
ELY E. WEARE, Fort Cudahy, N. W. T. 
CHARLES A. WEARE, Chicago, III. 
JOHN CUDAHY, Chicago, III 
PORTUS B. WEARE, Chicago, III. 
MICHAEL CUDAHY, Chicago, III. 



ALASKA and 
NORTHWEST TERRITORY 

MERCHANTS and CARRIERS 



STE/lI^ERS 

c'^ohn c{idan> 
a^ C. H. HaipUtoh | 

//aT. C. Power' 



•'6; 



Klondike 






TRADING POSTS : 

Fort Get There 

Weare 

Healy 

Circle City 

Fort Cudahy 

Dawson 



Operates Steamships 



between vScattle and Ft. Get There, St. Michael's Island, and 
steamboats from Ft. Get There, St. Michael's Island to all 
points on the Yukon River. The only established line running 
from Seattle to Klondike. Also operates large, well-stocked 

♦ stores at all of the principal mining points in the interior of 

Alaska and Northwest Territory on the Yukon River. For 
rates and full information of this wonderful mining country 
call on or address anv of the Company's ofifices. 

Steamers leave September lo, 1897, fir.st steamer in 1898, 
June ist, and every two weeks thereafter. 

CHICAGO OmCE...R. 290 Old Colony Building 

SEATTLE, WASH., OFFICE...N0. 618 First Avenue 

SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE...N0. 8 California Street 



"THE GREATEST GOLD DISTRICT ON EARTH." 



The Yukon-Cariboo 
British Columbia ^ 
Gold IMining 

CAPITAL 

$5,000,000 Development Company 

Shares... 

31.00 each. FuII Paid-Non Assessable. 



J. EDWARD ADDICKS, Pbesident. Claymont, Delaware. 

SYLVESTER T. EVERETT, 1st Vice-President, Cleveland. 

BENJAMIN BUTTERWORTH, 2d Vice-President, Washington. 

E. F. J. GAYNOR, treasurer. 

Auditor Manhattan R. /?., New York City. 

CHARLES H. KITTINGER. Secretary, 

66 Broaduiay, New York City, Harrison Building^ Philadelphia. 

DIRECTORS. 

HON. JOHN H. McGRAW, Ex-Governor, State of Washington. 

Vice-President First National Hank, Seattle. 
CAMILIE WEIDENFELD, Banker, 45 Wall Street, New York. 
CHARLES E. JUDSON, President Economic Gas Company, Chicago. 
HON". HFNTAMIN BUTTERWORTH, Com'sioner of Patents, Washington. 
HON. JAMES (i. SHAW, Manufacturer, New Castle, Delaware. 
SYLVESTER T. EVERETT, V-Pres't Cleveland Terminal 

& Valley R. R., Cleveland. 
CHARLES H. KITTINGER, 66 Broadway, New York, 

Harrison Building, Philadelphia. 
HON. JOHN LAUGHLIN, Ex-State Senator, New York, 

Laughlin, Ewell & Haupt, Attorneys-at-Law, Buffalo. 
JULIUS CHAMBERS, Journalist, New York. 

GEN. E. M. CARR, of Preston, Carr & Oilman, Attorneys-at-Law, Seattle. 
THOMAS W. LAWSON, Banker, 3:; State Street, Boston. 
GEORGE B. KITTINGER, Mining "Engineer, Seattle, Wash. 
E. F. J. GAYNOR, Auditor Manhattan Railway Co., New York. 
PHILO D. BEARD, Treasurer Queen City Gas Co., Buffalo. 
J. M. BUXTON, M. E., Vancouver, Briti.sh Columbia. 
GEORGE A. KELLY, 66 Broadway, New York. 
J. EDWARD ADDICKS, Delaware. 



. . . THIS COMPANY is formed to explore and develop the GOLD 
FIELiDS of British Columbia, including the Cariboo District and the Klondike 
District at the headwaters of the Yukon River. Shares of its Capital Stock 
are offered to the public at par $1 .OO per share. The Company has placed 
exploring parties in the Gold Regions, and now has its own Agents in this 
marvelously rich field. Each party is in charge of mining engineers, fully 
. equipped for successful discovery and development. 

Prospectus and additional information furnished, and subscriptions to 
stock received at ofHce of 

J. EDWARD ADDICKS, Harrison Building:, 

1500 >Iarket St,, Philadelphia. 



GOLDEN ALASKA 



A COMPLETE ACCOUNT TO DATE 



Yukon Valley 



ITS HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, MINERAL AND OTHER 

RESOURCES, OPPORTUNITIES AND 

MEANS OF ACCESS 



-^1/2 Ernest Ingersoll, 

3 -^ ^ (Portnerly with the Hayden Survey in the West) 

author of 

"Knocking 'Round the Rockies" "The Crest of the Continent, 

ETC., AND General Editor of Rand, McNally & 

Co.'s "Guide Books." 




Chicago and New York: 

RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY. 

1897. 
U4 



ALASKA. 

Bullion Safe 6oia 
Companp 

CAPITAL. .$1,000, 000 



Shares. . . $ i . 00 each 

Full Paid -<,^^^L-^^^ 

Non-Assessable 



Mines on the Yukon. 

Mines on the Blue River. 

This Company owns i6o acres of Gold-bear- 
ing gravel from five to forty feet thick con- 
* taining many millions of value. 

A limited amount of the full paid, non-assessable shares 

will be sold at one dollar each. 

1 \ * 

' For prospectus ^n«l particulars, address, 

A 

\ W. L. Boyd <& Oo..ewALi. street, 

C^/VCIV YORK. 

Copyright, 1897, by Rand, McNally & Co. 



/-I GlSi^ 



INTRODUCTION. 



To make "a book about the Klondike" so shortly- 
after that word first burst upon the ears of a sur- 
prised world, would be the height of literary impu- 
dence, considering how remote and incommunicado 
that region is, were it not the public is intensly cu- 
rious to know whatever can be said authentically in 
regard to it. "The Klondike," it must be remem- 
bered, is, in reality, a very limited district — only one 
small river valley in a gold-bearing territory twice 
as large as New England; and it came into promi- 
nence so recently that there is really little to tell 
in respect to it because nothing has had time to 
happen and be communicated to the outside world. 
But in its neighborhood, and far north and south 
of it, are other auriferous rivers, creeks and bars, 
and mountains filled with untried quartz-ledges, in 
respect to which information has been accumulat- 
ing for some years, and where at any moment 
"strikes" may be made that shall equal or eclipse 
the wealth of the Klondike placers. It is possible, 
then, to give here much valuable information in 



iv Golden Alaska. 

regard to the Yukon District generally, and this the 
writer has attempted to do. The best authority for 
early exploration and geography is the monumen- 
tal work of Capt. W. H. Dall, "Alaska and its Re- 
sources," whose companion, Frederick Whymper, 
also wrote a narrative of their adventures. The 
reports of the United States Coast Survey in that 
region, of the exploration of the Upper Yukon by 
Schwatka and Hayes of the United States Geological 
Survey, of Nelson, Turner and others attached to 
the Weather Service, of the Governor of the Terri- 
tory, of Raymond, Abercrombie, Allen and other 
army and naval officers who have explored the 
coast country and reported to various departments 
of the government, and of several individual explor- 
ers, especially the late E. J. Glave, also contain facts 
of importance for the present compilation. The 
most satisfactory sources of information as to the 
geography, routes of travel, geology and mineral- 
ogy and mining development, are contained in the 
investigations conducted some ten years ago by the 
Canadian Geological Survey, under the leadership 
of Dr. G. M. Dawson and of William Ogilvie. Of 
these I have made free use, and wish to make an 
equally free acknowledgement. 

It will thus be found that the contents of this 
pamphlet justified even the hasty publication which 



Golden Alaska. v 

the public demands, and which precludes much at- 
tention to literary form; but an additional claim to 
attention is the information it seeks to give intend- 
ing travelers to to that far-away and very new and as 
yet unfurnished region, how to go and what to 
take, and what are the conditions and emergencies 
which they must prepare to meet. Undoubtedly the 
pioneers to the Yukon pictured the difficulties of 
the route and the hardships of their life in the high- 
est colors, both to add to their self-glory and to re- 
duce competition. Moreover, every day mitigates 
the hardships and makes easier the travel. Never- 
theless, enough difficulties, dangers and chances of 
failure remain to make the going to Alaska a matter 
for very careful forethought on the part of every 
man. To help him weigh the odds and choose 
wisely, is the purpose of this little book. 



GOLDEN ALASKA. 



ROUTES TO THE YUKON GOLD-FIELDS. 

The gold-fields of the Yukon Valley, at and near 
Klondike River, are near the eastern boundary of 
Alaska, from twelve to fifteen hundred miles up from 
the mouth of the river, and from five to eight hun- 
dred miles inland by the route across the country 
from the southern x\laskan coast. In each case an 
ocean voyage must be taken as the first step; and 
steamers may be taken from San Francisco, Port- 
land, Ore., Seattle, Wash., or from Victoria, B. C. 

The overland routes to these cities require a 
word. 

I. To San Francisco. This city is reached di- 
rectly by half a dozen routes across the plains and 
Rocky Mountains, of which the Southern Pacific, 
by way of New Orleans and El Paso; the Atchison 
& Santa Fe and Atlantic & Pacific by way of 
Kansas City, and across northern New Mexico and 
Arizona; the Burlington, Denver & Rio Grande, by 
way of Denver and Sah Lake City; and the Union 



8 Golden Alaska. 

and Central Pacific, by way of Omaha, Ogden and 
Sacramento, are the principal ones. 

2. To Portland, Oregon. This is reached directly 
by the Union Pacific and Oregon Short Line, via 
Omaha and Ogden; and by the Northern Pacific, 
via St. Paul and Helena, Montana. 

3. To Seattle, Wash. This city, Tacoma, Port 
Townsend and other ports on Puget Sound, are 
the termini of the Northern Pacific Railroad and 
also of the Great Northern Railroad from St. Paul 
along the northern boundary of the United States. 
The Canadian Pacific will also take passengers there 
expeditiously by rail or boat from Vancouver, B. C. 

4. To Vancouver and Victoria, B. C. Any of 
the routes heretofore mentioned reach Victoria by 
adding a steamboat journey; but the direct route, 
and one of the pleasantest of all the transcontinental 
routes, is by the Canadian Pacific Railway from 
Montreal or Chicago, via Winnipeg, Manitoba, to 
the coast at Vancouver, whence a ferry crosses to 
Victoria. 

Regular routes of transportation to Alaska are 
supplied by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, 
which has been dispatching mail-steamships once a 
fortnight the year round from Tacoma to Sitka, 
which touch at Juneau and all other ports of call. 
They also maintain a service of steamers between 



Golden Alaska. 9 

San Francisco and Portland and Puget Sound ports. 
These are fitted with every accommodation and lux- 
ury for tourist-travel; and an extra steamer, the 
Queen, has been making semi-monthly trips during 
June, July and August. These steamers would 
carry 250 passengers comfortably and the tourist 
fare for the round trip has been $100. 

The Canadian Pacific Navigation Company has 
been sending semi-monthly steamers direct from 
Victoria to Port Simpson and way stations the year 
round. They are fine boats, but smaller than the 
others and are permitted to land only at Sitka and 
Dyea. 

Such are the means of regular communication 
with Alaskan ports. There has been no public con- 
veyance north of Sitka, except twice or thrice a 
year in summer in the supply-steamers of the Alas- 
kan commercial companies, which sailed from San 
Francisco to St. Michael and there transferred to 
small boats up the Yukon. 

Whether any changes will be made in these 
schedules for the season of 1898 remains to be 
seen. 

Special steamers. — As the regular accommoda- 
tions were found totally inadequate to the demand 
for passage to Alaska which immediately followed 
the report of rich discoveries on Klondike Creek, 



lo Golden Alaska. 

extra steamers were hastily provided by the old 
companies, others are fitted up and sent out by 
speculative owners, and some have been privately 
chartered. A score or more steamships, loaded with 
passengers, horses, mules and burros (donkeys) to 
an uncomfortable degree, were thus despatched from 
San Francisco, Puget Sound and Victoria between 
the middle of July and the middle of August. An 
example of the way the feverish demand for trans- 
portation is found in the case of the Willamette, 
a collier, which was cleaned out in a few hours and 
turned into an extemporized passenger-boat. The 
whole 'tween decks space was filled with rough 
bunks, wonderfully close together, for "first-class" 
passengers; while away down in the hold second- 
class arrangements were made which the mind shud- 
ders to contemplate. Yet this slave-ship sort of a 
chance was eagerly taken, and such space as was 
left was crowded with animals and goods. Many 
persons and parties bought or chartered private 
steamers, until the supply of these was exhausted 
by the end of August. 
Two routes may be chosen to the gold-fields. 

1. By way of the Yukon River. This is all the 
way by water, and means nearly 4,500 miles of voy- 
aging. 

2. By way of the seaports of Dyea or Shkagway, 



Golden Alaska. 13 

over mountain passes, afoot or a-horseback, and 
down the upper Yukon River and down the lakes 
and rivers by raft, skiff and steamboat. 

To describe these routes is the next task — first, 
that by the way of St. >\Iichael, and second — up the 
Yukon River. 

Route, via St. Michael and the Yukon River, — 
This begins by a sea-voyage, which may be direct, 
or along the coast. The special steamers (and fu- 
ture voyages, no doubt) usually take a direct course 
across the North Pacific and through the Aleutian 
Islands to St. ]\Iichael, in Norton Sound, a bight of 
Bering Sea. The distance from San Francisco is 
given as 2,850 miles; from Victoria or Seattle, about 
2,200 miles. The inside course would be somewhat 
longer, would follow the route next to be described 
as far as Juneau and Sitka, then strike northwest 
along the coast to St. Alichael. 

This town, on an island near shore in Norton 
Sound, was established in 1835 by Lieut. Michael 
TebenkofY, of the Russian navy, who named it after 
his patron saint. Though some distance to the 
mouth of the Yukon entrance, St. Michael has al- 
ways been the controlling center and base of sup- 
plies for the great valley. The North American 
Trading and Transportation Company and the Alas- 
ka Commercial Company have their large ware- 



14 Golden Alaska, 

houses here, and provide the miners with tools, 
clothing and provisions. Recently the wharf and 
warehouse accommodations have been extended, 
and the population has increased, but if, as is prob- 
able, any considerable number of men are stopped 
there this fall by the freezing of the river, and com- 
pelled to pass the winter on the island, they will 
find it a dreary, if not dangerous experience. 

The vessels supplying this depot can seldom ap- 
proach the anchorage of St. Michael before the end 
of June on account of large bodies of drifting ice 
that beset the waters of Norton Sound and the straits 
between St. Lawrence and the Yukon Delta. 

A temporary landing-place is built out into water 
deep enough for loaded boats drawing five feet to 
come up at high tide, this is removed when winter 
approaches, as otherwise it would be destroyed by 
ice. The shore is sandy and affords a moderately 
sloping beach, on which boats may be drawn up. 
A few feet only from high water mark are perpen- 
dicular banks from six to ten feet high, composed 
of decayed pumice and ashes, covered with a layer 
about four feet thick of clay and vegetable matter 
resembling peat. This forms a nearly even meadow 
with numerous pools of water, which gradually as- 
cends for a mile or so to a low hill, of volcanic ori- 
gin, known as the Shaman Mountain. 



Golden Alaska. 15 

Between the point on which St. Michael is built 
and the mainland, a small arm of the sea makes in, 
in which three fathoms may be carried until the 
flagstaff of the fort bears west by north, this is the 
best-protected anchorage, and has as much water 
and as good bottom as can be found much farther 
out. 

The excitement of the summer of 1897 caused an 
enlargement of facilities and the erection of addi- 
tional buildings, forming a nucleus of trafiQc called 
Fort Get There. Here will be put together in the 
autumn or winter at least three, and perhaps more, 
new river steamboats, of which only two or three 
have been running on the lower river during the 
last two or three years. These are taken up, in 
pieces, by ships and fitted together at this point. All 
are flat-bottomed, stern-wheeled, powerfully engined 
craft, the largest able to carry perhaps 250 tons, 
such as run on the upper Missouri, and they will 
burn wood, the cutting and stacking of which on 
the river bank will furnish work to many men dur- 
ing the coming winter. To such steamers, or small- 
er boats, all the persons and cargoes must be trans- 
ferred at St. Michael. 

For the last few years there has been no trader 
here but the agent of the Alaska Commercial Com- 
pany, and a story is told of the building of a river- 



i6 Golden Alaska. 

boat there in 1892, which illustrates what life on 
the Yukon used to be. In that year a Chicago man, 
P. B. Weare, resolved to enter the Alaskan field as 
a trader. He chartered a schooner, and placed upon 
it a steamboat, built in sections and needing only to 
be put together and have its machinery set up, and 
for this purpose he took with him a force of car- 
penters and machinists. On reaching St. Michael 
Weare was refused permission to land his boat sec- 
tions on the land of the Commercial Company's 
post, and was compelled to make a troublesome 
landing on the open beach, where he began opera- 
tions. Suddenly his ship carpenters stopped work. 
They had been offered, it was said, double pay by 
the rival concern if they would desist from all work. 
Weare turned to the Indians, but with the same ill- 
success. The Indians were looking out for their 
winter grub. Here was the Chicago man 2,500 
miles from San Francisco and only two weeks 
left to him in which to put his boat together and 
then hope for a chance to ascend the river before 
winter came on. There was no time in which to 
get additional men from San Francisco. In the 
midst of his trouble Weare one day espied the rev- 
enue cutter Bear steaming into the roadstead. On 
board of her was Captain Michael A. Healy. That 
officer, on going ashore and discovering the con- 



Golden Alaska. ig 

dition of affairs, threatened to hang every carpenter 
and mechanic Weare had brought up if they failed 
to immediately commence work. The men went to 
work, and with them went a gang of men from the 
Bear. The little steamer was put together in a few 
days, and the Bear only went to sea after seeing 
the P. B. Weare steaming into the mouth of the 
Yukon. 

The Weare was enabled that summer to land her 
stores along the Yukon, and was the only vessel 
available for the early crowds of miners going to 
Klondike, 

The mouth of the Yukon is a great delta, sur- 
rounded by marsh of timber — a soaking prairie in 
summer, a plain of snow and ice in winter. The 
shifting bars and shallows face out from this delta 
far into Bering Sea, and no channel has yet been 
discovered whereby an ocean steamer could enter 
any of the mouths. Fortunately the northernmost 
mouth, nearest St. Michael and 65 miles from it, is 
navigable for the light river steamers, and this one, 
called Aphoon, and marked by its unusual growth 
of willows and bushes is well known to the local 
Russian and Indian pilots. It is narrow and intri- 
cate, and the general course up stream is south- 
southeast. Streams and passages enter it, and it has 
troublesome tidal currents. The whole space be- 



20 ■ Golden Alaska. 

tween the mouth is a net-work, indeed, of narrow 
channels, through the marshes. 

Kutluck, at the outlet of the Aphoon, on Pastol 
Bay, is an Indian village ,long celebrated for its man- 
ufacture of skin boats (bidars), and there the old- 
time voyagers were accustomed to get the only 
night's sleep ashore that navigation permits between 
St. Michael and Andraefski. On the south bank 
of the main stream, at the head of the delta, is the 
Roman Catholic mission of Kuslivuk; and a few 
miles higher, just above the mouth of the Andraef- 
ski River, is tne abandoned Russian trading post, 
Andraefski, above which the river winds past Icog- 
mute, where there is a Greek Catholic mission. The 
banks of the river are much wooded, and the cur- 
rent even as far down as Koserefski averages over 
three knots an hour. Above Koserefski (the Cath- 
olic Mission station), the course is along stretches 
of uninviting country, among marsh islands and 
"sloughs," the current growing more and more 
swift on the long reach from Auvik, where the Epis- 
copal mission is situated, to Nulato. 

The river here has a nearly north and south 
course, parallel with the coast of Norton Sound and 
within fifty miles or so of it. Two portages across 
here form cut-offs in constant use in winter by the 
traders, Indians and missionaries. The first of these 



Cjoldex Alaska. 21 

portages starts from the mainland opposite the Isl- 
and of St. Michael, and passes over the range of hills 
that defines the shore to the headwaters of the An- 
vik River. This journey may be made in winter by 
sledges and thence down the Auvik to the Yukon, 
but it is a hard road. Mr. Nelson, the naturalist, 
and a fur trader, spent two months from November 
16, 1880, to January 19, 189 1, in reaching the Yu- 
kon by this path. 

The other portage is that between Unalaklik, a 
Swedish mission station at the mouth of the Unalak- 
lik River, some fifty miles north of St. Michael, and 
a stream that enters the Yukon half way between 
Auvik and Nulato. In going from St. Michael to 
Unalatlik there are few points at which a boat can 
land even in the smoothest weather; in rough 
weather only Major'r Cove and Kegiktowenk before 
rounding Tolstoi Point to Topanika, where there is 
a trading post. Topanika is some ten miles from 
Unalaklik, with a high shelving beach, behind which 
rise high walls of sandstone in perpendicular bluffs 
from twenty to one hundred feet in height. This 
beach continues all the way to the Unalaklik River, 
the bluff gradually decreasing into a marshy plain at 
the river's mouth, which is obstructed by a bar over 
which at low tide there arc only a few feet of water 
except in a narrow^ and tortuous channel, constantly 



22 Golden Alaska. 

changing as the river deposits fresh detritus. Inside 
this bar there are two or three fathoms for a few 
miles, but the channel has only a few feet, most of 
the summer, from the mouth of the river to Ulu- 
kuk. 

Trees commence along the Unalaklik River as 
soon as the distance from the coast winds and salt 
air permit them to grow; willow, poplar, birch and 
spruce being those most frec[uently found. 

The Unalaklik River is followed upward to Ulu- 
kuk, where begins a sledging portage over the 
marshes to the Ulukuk Hills, where there is a na- 
tive village known as Vesolia Sopka, or Cheerful 
Peak, at an altitude of eight hundred feet above the 
surrounding plain. This is a well-known trapping 
ground, the fox and marten being very plentiful. 
From Sopka Vesolia (Cheerful Peak) it is about 
one day's journey to Beaver Lake, which is only 
a marshy tundra in winter, but is flooded in the 
spring and summer months. From the high hills 
beyond the lake one may catch a first glimpse of the 
great Yukon sweeping between its splendid banks. 

The natives call Nulato emphatically a "hungry" 
place, and it was once the scene of an atrocious mas- 
sacre. Capt. Dall, from whose book much of the 
information regarding this part of Alaska is derived, 
describes the Indians here as a very great nuisance. 




OLD RUSSIAN BLOCK HOUSE AT SITKA. 



Golden Alaska. 25 

"They had," he explains, "a great habit of coming 
in and sitting down, doing and saying nothing, but 
watching everything. At meal times they seemed 
to count and weigh every morsel we ate, and were 
never backward in assisting to dispose of the re- 
mains of the meal. Occasionally we would get des- 
perate and clean them all out, but they would drop 
in again and we could do nothing but resign our- 
selves." 

The soil on the banks of the Yukon and that of 
the islands probably never thaws far below the sur- 
face. It is certain that no living roots are found at 
a greater depth than three feet. The soil, in layers 
that seems to mark annual inundations, consists of 
a stratum of sand overlaid by mud and covered with 
vegetable matter, the layers being from a half inch 
to three inches in thickness. In many places where 
the bank has been undermined these layers may be 
counted by the hundred. Low bluffs of blue sand- 
stone, with here and there a high gravel bank, char- 
acterize the shores as far as Point Sakataloutan, and 
some distance above this point begin the quartzose 
rocks. 

The next station on the river is the village of No- 
wikakat, on the left bank. Mere may be obtained 
stores of dried meat and fat from the Indians. The 
village is situated upon a beautiful bay or Xowika- 



26 Golden Alaska. 

kat Harbor, which is connected by a narrow en- 
trance with the Yukon. "Through this a beautiful 
view is obtained across the river, through the numer- 
ous islands of the opposite shore, and of the Yukon 
Mountains in the distance. The feathery willows 
and light poplars bend over and are reflected in the 
dark water, unmixed as yet with Yukon mud; 
every island and hillside is clothed in the delicate 
green of spring, and luxuriates in a density of foli- 
age remarkable in such a latitude." 

Nowikakat is specially noted for the excellence of 
its canoes, of which the harbor is so full that a boat 
makes its landing with difficulty among them. It is 
the only safe place on the lower Yukon for winter- 
ing a steamer, as it is sheltered from the freshets 
which bring down great crushes of ice in the spring. 

At Nuklukahyet there is a mission of the Episco- 
pal church and a trading store, but there may or 
may not be supplies of civilized goods, not to speak 
of moose meat and fat. This is the neutral ground 
where all the tribes meet in the spring to trade. 
The Tananah, which flows into the Yukon at this 
point, is much broader here than the Yukon, and 
it is here that Captain Dall exclaims in his diary: 
"And yet into this noble river no white..man has 
dipped liis paddle." Recently, however, the Tana- 
nah has been more or less explored by prospectors 



Golden Alaska. 27 

with favorable results towards the head of the river, 
which is more easily reached overland from Circle 
City and the Birch Creek camps. 

Leaving Nuklukahyet, the "Ramparts" are soon 
sighted, and the Yukon rapids sweep between bluffs 
and hills which rise about fifteen hundred feet above 
the river, which is not more than half a mile wide and 
seems almost as much underground as a river bed 
in a canyon. The rocks are metaphoric quartzites, 
and the river-bed is crossed by a belt of granite. 
The rapid current has w^orn the granite away at 
either side, making two good channels, but in the 
center lies an island of granite over which the water 
plunges at high water, the fall being about twelve 
feet in half a mile. 

Beyond the mouth of the Tananah the Yukon 
begins to widen, and it is filled with small islands. 
The mountains disappear, and just beyond them the 
Totokakat, or Dall River of Ketchum, enters the 
Yukon from the north. Beyond this point the river, 
ever broadening, passes the "Small Houses," de- 
serted along the bank at the time, years ago, when 
the scarlet fever, brought by a trading vessel to the 
mouth of the Chilkat, spread to the Upper Yukon 
and depopulated the station. This place is noted 
for the abundance of its game and fish. 

The banks of the river above this point become 



28 Golden Alaska. 

very low and flat, the plain stretching almost un- 
broken to the Arctic Ocean. 

The next stream which empties into the Yukon 
is Beaver Creek, and farther on the prospector 
bound for Circle City may make his way some two 
hundred miles up Birch Creek, along which much 
gold has already been discovered, to a portage of 
six miles, which will carry him within six miles of 
Circle City on the west. 

Meanwhile the Yukon passes Porcupine River and 
Fort Yukon, the old trading-post founded in 1846-7, 
about a mile farther up the river than the present 
fort is situated. The situation was changed in 1864, 
owing to the undermining of the Yukon, which 
yearly washed away a portion of the steep bank un- 
til the foundation timbers of the old Redoubt over- 
hung the flood. 

Many small islands encumber the river from Fort 
Yukon to Circle City, and the river flows along the 
rich lowland to the towns and mining centers of the 
new El Dorado, an account of which belongs to 
a future chapter. 

This voyage can be made only between the middle 
of June and the middle of September, and requires 
about forty days, at best, from San Francisco to Cir- 
cle City or Forty Mile. 

Route via Juneau, the Passes and down the Up- 




INDIAN TOTEM POLE, FORT SIMPSOM. 



Golden Alaska. 31 

per Yukon River. The second and more usual, be- 
cause shorter and quicker course, is that to the 
head of Lynn Canal (Taiya Inlet) and overland. 
This coast voyage may be said to begin at Victoria, 
B. C. (since all coast steamers gather and stop 
there), where a large number of persons prefer to 
buy their outfits, since by so doing, and obtaining 
a certificate of the fact, they avoid the custom du- 
ties exacted at the boundary line on all goods and 
equipments brought from the United States. Victo- 
ria is well supplied with stores, and is, besides, one 
of the most interesting towns on the Pacific coast. 
The loveliest place in the whole neighborhood is 
Beacon Hill Park, and is well worth a visit by those 
who find an hour or two on their hands before the 
departure of the steamer. It forms a half-natural, 
half-cultivated area of the shore of the Straits of 
Fuca, where coppices of the beautiful live oak, and 
many strange trees and shrubs mingled with the all- 
pervading evergreens. 

Within three miles of the city, and reached by 
street cars, is the principal station in the North Pa- 
cific of the British navy, at Esquimault Bay. This 
is one of the most picturesque harbors in the world, 
and a beginning is made of fortifications upon a very 
large scale and of the most modern character. This 
station, in many respects, is the most interest- 



32 Golden Alaska. 

ing place on the Pacific coast of Canada. 

Leaving Victoria, the steamer makes its way cau- 
tiously through the sinuous channels of the harbor 
into the waters of Fuca Strait, but this is soon left 
behind and the steamer turns this way, and that, at 
the entrance to the Gulf of Georgia, among those 
islands through which runs the international boun- 
dary line, and for the possession of which England 
and the United States nearly went to war in 1862. 
The water at first is pale and somewhat opaque, for 
it is the current of the great Fraser gliding far out 
upon the surface, and the steamer passes on beyond 
it into the darker, clearer, salter waters of the gulf. 
Then the prow is headed to Vancouver, where the 
mails, freight and new railway passengers are re- 
ceived. 

From Vancouver the steamer crosses to Nanaimo, 
a large settlement on A'ancouver Island, where coal 
mines of great importance exist. A railway now 
connects this point with A^ictoria, and a wagon road 
crosses the interior of the island to Alberni Canal 
and the seaport at its entrance on Barclay Sound. 
This is the farthest northern telegraph point. The 
mines at Nanaimo were exhausted some time ago, 
after which deep excavations were made on New- 
castle Island, just opposite the town. But after a 
tremendous fire these also were abandoned, and all 



Golden Alaska. 33 

the workings are now on the shores of Departure 
Bay, where a colHery village named WelHngton has 
been built up. A steam ferry connects Nanaimo 
with Wellington; and while the steamer takes in its 
coal, the passengers disperse in one or the other vil- 
lage, go trout fishing, shooting or botanizing in the 
neighboring woods, or trade and chaflfer with the 
Indians. Xanaimo has anything but the appear- 
ance of a mining town. The houses do not stretch 
out in the squalid, soot-covered rows familiar to 
Pennsylvania, but are scattered picturesquely, and 
surrounded by gardens. 

Just ahead lie the splendid hills of Texada Island, 
whose iron mines yield ore of extraordinary purity, 
which is largely shipped to the United States to be 
made into steel. The steamer keeps to the left, mak- 
ing its way through Bayne's Sound, passing Cape 
Lazaro on the left and the upper end of Texada on 
the right, across the broadening water along the 
Vancouver shore into Seymour Narrows. These 
narrows are only about 900 yards wide, and in them 
there is an incessant turmoil and bubbling of cur- 
rents. This is caused by the collision of the streams 
which takes place here; the flood stream from the 
south, through the Strait of Fuca and up the Haro 
Archipelago being met by that from Queen Char- 
lotte Sound and Johnstone straits. These straits are 



34 



Golden Alaska. 



about 140 miles long, and by the time their full 
length is passed, and the maze of small islands 
on the right and Vancouver's bulwark on the left 
are escaped together, the open Pacific shows itself 
for an hour or two in the offing of Queen Charlotte's 
Sound, and the steamer rises and falls gently upon 
long, lazy rollers that have swept all the way from 
China and Polynesia. Otherwise the whole voyage 
is in sheltered waters, and seasickness is impossible. 
The steamer's course now hugs the shore, turning 
into Fitz Hugh Sound, among Calvert, Hunter's 
and Bardswell islands, where the ship's spars some- 
times brush the overhanging trees. Here are the 
entrances to Burke Channel and Dean's Canal that 
penetrate far amid the tremendous cliffs of the main- 
land mountains. Beyond these the steamer dashes 
across the open bight of Milbank Sound only to en- 
ter the long passages behind Princess Royal, Pit 
and Packer islands, and coming out at last into 
Dixon Sound at the extremity of British Columbia's 
ragged coast line. 

The fogs which prevail here are due to the fact 
that this bight is filled with the waters of the warm 
Japanese current and the gulf stream of the Pacific 
from which the warm moisture rises to be condensed 
by the cool air that descends from the neighboring 
mountains, into the dense fogs and heavy rain 



Golden Alaska. 37 

storms to which the Httoral forest owes its extra- 
ordinary luxuriance. During the mid-summer and 
early autumn, however, the temperature of air and 
water become so nearly equable that fog and rain 
are the exception rather than the rule. 

Crossing the invisible boundary into Alaska the 
steamer heads straight toward Fort Tougass, on 
Wales Island, once a military station of the United 
States, but now only a fishing place. Between this 
point and Fort Wrangel another abandoned military 
post of the United States, two or three fish canneries 
and trading stations arc visited and the ship goes on 
among innumerable islands and along wide reaches 
of sound to Taku Inlet (which deeply indents the 
coast, and is likely in the near future to become an 
important route to the gold fields), and a few hours 
later Juneau City is reached. 

Juneau City has been lately called the key to the 
Klondike regions, as it is the point of departure for 
the numberless gold hunters who, when the season 
opens again, will rush blindly over incalculably rich 
ledges near the coast to that remote inland El Do- 
rado of their dreams. 

Juneau has for seventeen years been supported by 
the gold mines of the neighboring coast. It is situ- 
ated ten miles above the entrance of Gastineau Chan- 
nel, and lies at the base of precipitous mountains, 



38 Golden Alaska. 

its court house, hotels, churches, schools, hospital 
and opera house forming the nucleus for a popula- 
tion which in 1893 aggregated 1,500, a number very 
largely increased each winter by the miners who 
gather in from distant camps. The saloons, of which 
in 1871 there were already twenty-two, have in- 
creased proportionately, and there are, further, at 
least one weekly newspaper, one volunteer fire bri- 
gade, a militia company and a brass band in Juneau. 
The curio shops on Front and Seward streets are well 
worth visiting, and from the top of Seward Street a 
path leads up to the Auk village, whose people 
claim the flats at the mouth of Gold Creek. A curi- 
ous cemetery may be seen on the high ground across 
the creek, ornamented with totemic carvings and 
hung with offerings to departed spirits which no 
white man dares disturb. 
FROM JUNEAU TO THE GOLD FIELDS, 
The few persons who formerly wished to go to 
the head of Lynn Canal did so mainly by canoeing, 
or chartered launches, but now many opportunities 
are offered by large steamboats. Most of the steam- 
ers that bring miners and prospectors from below 
do not now discharge their freight at Juneau, how- 
ever, but go straight to the new port Dyea at the 
head of the canal. Lynn Canal is the grandest fiord 
on the coast, which it penetrates for seventy-five 



Golden Alaska. 39 

miles. It is then divided by a long peninsula called 
Seduction Point, into two prongs, the western of 
which is called Chilkat Inlet, and the eastern Chil- 
koot. "It has but few indentations, and the abrupt 
palisades of the mainland shores present an unri- 
valled panorama of mountains, glaciers and forests, 
with wonderful cloud effects. Depths of 430 fath- 
oms have been sounded in the canal, and the conti- 
nental range on the east and the White Mountains 
on the west rise to average heights of 6,000 feet, 
with glaciers in every ravine and alcove." No Cam- 
eron boundary line, which Canada would like to es- 
tablish, would cut this fiord in two, and make it use- 
less to both countries in case of quarrel. The mag- 
nificent fan-shaped Davidson glacier, here, is only 
one among hundreds of grand ice rivers shedding 
their bergs into its waters. At various points sal- 
mon canneries have long been in operation ; and the 
Seward City mines are only the best among several 
mineral locations of promise. A glance at the map 
will show that this "canal" forms a straight continu- 
ation of Chatham Strait, making a north and south 
passage nearly four hundred miles in length, which 
is undoubtedly the trough of a departed glacier. 

Dyea, the new steamer landing and sub-port of 
entry, is at the head of navigation on the Chilkoot 
or eastern branch of this Lynn Canal, and takes its 



40 Golden Alaska. 

name, in bad modern spelling, from the long-known 
Taiya Inlet, which is a prolongation inland for 
twenty miles of the head of the Chilkoot Inlet. It 
should continue to be spelled Tiaya. This inlet is 
far the better of the two for shipping, Chilkat Inlet 
being exposed to the prevalent and often dangerous 
south wind, so that it is regarded by navigators as 
one of the most dangerous points on the Alaskan 
coast. A Presbyterian mission and government 
school were formerly sustained at Haines, on Seduc- 
tion Point, but were abandoned some years ago on 
account of Indian hostility. 

The Passes. — Three passes over the mountains 
are reached from these two inlets, — Chilkat, Chil- 
koot and White. 

Chilkat Pass is that longest known and formerly 
most in vogue. The Chilkat Indians had several 
fixed villages near the head of the inlet, and were 
accustomed to go back and forth over the moun- 
tains to trade with the interior Indians, whom they 
would not allow to come to the coast. They thus 
enjoyed not only the monopoly of the business of 
carrying supplies over to the Yukon trading posts 
and bringing out the furs, and more recently of as- 
sisting the miners, but made huge profits as middle- 
men between the Indians of the interior and the 
trading posts on the coast. They are a sturdy race 



Golden Alaska. 



43 



of mountaineers, and the most arrogant, treacherous 
and turbulent of all the northwestern tribes, but 
their day is nearly passed. The early explorers — 
Krause, Everette and others — took this pass, and 
it was here that E. J. Glave first tried (in 1891) to 
take pack horses across the mountains, and suc- 
ceeded so well as to show the feasibility of that 
method of carriage, which put a check upon the 
extortion and faithlessness of the Indian carriers. 
His account of his adventures in making this experi- 
ment, over bogs, wild rocky heights, snow fields, 
swift rivers and forest barriers, has been detailed in 
The Century ]\Iagazine for 1892, and should be read 
by all interested. "No matter how important your 
mission," Mr. Glave wrote, "your Indian carriers, 
though they have duly contracted to accompany 
you, will delay your departure till it suits their con- 
venience, and any exhibition of impatience on your 
part will only remind them of your utter depen- 
dency on them; and then intrigue for increase of 
pay will at once begin. While en route they will 
prolong the journey by camping on the trail for two 
or three weeks, tempted by good hunting or fishing. 
In a land where the open season is so short, and 
the ways are so long, such delay is a tremendous 
drawback. Often the Indians will carry their loads 
some part of the way agreed on, then demand an 



44 Golden Alaska. 

extravagant increase of pay or a goodly share of the 
white man's stores, and, faihng to get either, will 
f^ing down their packs and return to their village, 
leaving their white employer helplessly stranded. 

The usual charge for Indian carriers is $2 a day 
and board, and they demand the best fare and a 
great deal of it, so that the white man finds his pre- 
cious stores largely wasted before reaching his des- 
tination. These facts are mentioned, not because it is 
now necessary to endure this extortion and expense, 
but to show how little dependence can be placed 
upon the hope of securing the aid of Indian packers 
in carrying the goods of prospectors or explorers 
elsewhere in the interior, and the great expense in- 
volved. This pass descends to a series of connected 
lakes leading down to Lake Labarge and thence by 
another stream to the Lewes; and it requires twelve 
days of pack-carrying — far more than is necessary 
on the other passes. As a consequence, this pass is 
now rarely used except by Indians going to the Ak- 
sekh river and the coast ranges northward. 

Chilkoot, Taiya or Parrier Pass. — This is the 
pass that has been used since 1885 by the min- 
ers and others on the upper Yukon, and is still 
a route of travel. It starts from the head of 
canoe navigation on Taiya infet, and follows up a 
stream valley, gradually leading to the divide, which 



GoLDEX Alaska. 45 

is only 3,500 feet above the sea. The first clay's 
march is to the foot of the ascent, and over a terrible 
trail, through heavy woods and along a steep, rocky 
and often boggy hillside, broken by several deep 
gullies. The ascent is then very abrupt and over 
huge masses of fallen rock or steep slippery surfaces 
of rock in place. At the actual summit, which for 
seven or eight miles is bare of trees or bushes, the 
trail leads through a narrow rocky gap, and the 
whole scene is one of the most complete desolation. 
X'aked granite rocks, rising steeply to partly snow- 
clad mountains on either side. Descending the in- 
land or north slope is eciually bad traveling, largely 
over wide areas of shattered rocks where the trail 
may easily be lost. The further valley contains sev- 
eral little lakes and leads roughly down to Lake 
Lindeman. The distance from Taiya is twenty-three 
and a half miles, and it is usually made in two days. 
Miners sometimes cross this pass in April, choos- 
ing fine weather, and then continue down the lakes 
on the ice to some point where they can conveni- 
ently camp and wait for the opening of navigation 
on the Yukon; ordinarily it is unsafe to attempt a 
return in the autumn later than the first of October. 
Lake Lindeman is a long narrow piece of water 
navigable for boats to its foot, where a very bad river 
passage leads into the larger Lake Bennett, where 



46 Golden Alaska. 

the navigation of the Yukon really begins. 
"The Chilkoot Pass," writes one of its latest trav- 
elers, "is difficult, even dangerous, to those not pos- 
sessed of steady nerves. Toward the summit there is 
a sheer ascent of 1,000 feet, where a slip would cer- 
tainly be fatal. At this point a dense mist overtook 
us, but we reached Lake Lindeman — the first of a 
series of five lakes — in safety, after a fatiguing tramp 
of fourteen consecutive hours through half-melted 
snow. Here we had to build our own boat, first 
felling the timber for the purpose. The journey 
down the lakes occupied ten days, four of which 
were passed in camp on Lake Bennett, during a vio- 
lent storm, which raised a heavy sea. The rapids 
followed. One of these latter, the "Grand Canyon," 
is a mile long, and dashes through walls of rock 
from 50 to 100 feet high; six miles below are the 
"White Horse Rapids," a name which many fatal 
accidents have converted into the "Miner's Grave." 
But snags and rocks are everywhere a fruitful source 
of danger on this river, and from this rapid down- 
ward scarcely a day passed that one did not see some 
cairn or wooden cross marking the last resting place 
of some drowned pilgrim to the land of gold. The 
above is a brief sketch of the troubles that beset the 
Alaskan gold prospector — troubles that, although 
unknown in the eastern states and Canada, have for 



Golden Alaska. 49 

many years past associated the name of Yukon with 
an ugly sound in western America." 

It is probable that few if any persons need go over 
this pass next year, and its hardships wall become a 
tradition instead of a terrible prospect. 

White Pass. — This pass lies south of the Chil- 
koot, and leaves the coast at the mouth of the 
Shagway river, five miles south of Dyea and lOO 
from Juneau. It was first explored in 1887 and was 
found to run parallel to the Chilkoot. The distance 
from the coast to the summit is seventeen miles, of 
which the first five are in level bottom land, thickly 
timbered. The next nine miles are in a canon-like 
valley, beyond which three miles, comparatively 
easy, take one to the summit, the altitude of which 
is roughly estimated at 2,600 feet. Beyond the sum- 
mit a wide valley is entered and leads gradually to 
the Tahko arm of Tahgish lake. This pass, though 
requiring a longer carriage, is lower and easier than 
the others, and already a pack-trail has been built 
through it which will soon be followed by a wagon 
road, and surveys for a narrow guagc railway are 
in progress. At the mouth of the Shkagway River 
ocean steamers can run up at all times to a wharf 
which has been constructed in a sheltered position, 
and there is an excellent town site with protection 
from storms. 



50 Golden Alaska. 

An English company, the British Columbia De- 
velopment Association, Limited, has already estab- 
lished a landing wharf and is erecting a wharf and 
sawmills at Skagway, whence it is proposed (as soon 
as feasible) to lay down a line of rail some thirty- 
five miles long, striking the Yukon River at a branch 
of the Marsh Lake, about lOO miles below Lake Lin- 
demann. By this means the tedious and difficult 
navigation between these two points will be avoided, 
and the only dangerous parts of the river below will 
be circumvented by a road or rail portage. Light- 
draught steamers will be put on from Teslin Lake to 
the canon and from the foot of the latter to all the 
towns and camps on the river. 

Dyea is a village of cabins and tents, and little if 
anything in the way of supplies can be got there; 
it is a mere forwarding point. 

Pending the completion of the facilities mentioned 
above, miners may transport their goods over the 
pack trail on their own or hired burros, and at Tah- 
gish Lake take a boat down the Tahco arm (i i miles) 
to the main lake, and down that lake and its outlet 
into Lake Marsh. This chain of lakes, filling the 
troughs of old glacial fiords to a level of 2,150 feet 
above the sea, "constitutes a singularly picturesque 
region, abounding in striking points of view and in 
landscapes pleasing in their variety or grand and im- 



Golden Alaska. 51 

prcssive in this combination of rugged mountain 
forms." All afford still-water navigation, and as soon 
as the road through White Pass permits the trans- 
portation of machinery, they will doubtless be well 
supplied with steamboats. IMarsh Lake is 20 miles 
long, Bennett 26, and Tagish 16^ miles, with Windy 
Arm 1 1 miles long, Tahko Arm 20 miles, and other 
long, narrow extensions among the terraced, ever- 
green-wooded hills that border its tranquil surface. 
The depression in which this group of lakes lies is 
between the coast range and the main range of the 
Rockies; and as it is sheltered from the wet sea- 
winds by the former heights, its climate is nearly as 
dry of that of the interior. The banks are fairly well 
timbered, though large open spaces exist, and 
abound in herbage, grass and edible berries. Lake 
Marsh, named by Schwatka after Prof. O. C. Marsh 
of Yale, but called Mud Lake by the miners, without 
good reason, is twenty miles long and about two 
wide. It is rather shallow and the left bank should 
be followed. The surrounding region is rather low, 
rising by terraces to high ranges on each side, where 
Michie mountain, 5,540 feet in height, eastward, and 
Mounts Lorue and Landsdowne, westward, 6,400 
and 6,140 feet high respectively, are the most prom- 
inent peaks. "The diversified form of the moun- 
tains in view from this lake render it particularly 



52 Golden Alaska. 

picturesque," remarks Dr. Dawson, "and at the time 
of our visit, on the loth and nth of September, the 
autumn tints of the aspens and other deciduous trees 
and shrubs, mingled with the sombre greens of the 
spruces and pines, added to its beauty." 

Near the foot of this lake enters the McCHntock 
river, of which little is known. The oulet is a clear, 
narrow, quiet stream, called Fifty-mile River, v/hich 
flows somewhat westerly down the great valley. 
Large numbers of dead and dying salmon are al- 
ways seen here in summer, and as these fish never 
reach Lake Marsh, it is evident that the few who are 
able, after their long journey, to struggle up the 
rapids, have not strength left to survive. 

The descent of the Lewes (or Yukon) may be said 
to begin at this point, and 23 miles below Lake 
Marsh the first and most serious obstacle is encoun- 
tered in the White Horse Rapids, and Miles Canon. 
Their length together is 2f miles, and they seem to 
have been caused by a small local effusion of lava, 
which was most unfortunately ejected right in the 
path of the river. The canon is often not more than 
100 feet in width, and although parts of.it may be 
run at favorable times, all of it is dangerous, and 
the White Horse should never be attempted. The 
portage path in the upper part of the caiion is on 
the east bank, and is about five-eighths of a mile 



Golden Alaska. 55 

long. There a stretch of navigation is possible, with 
caution, ending at the head of White Horse Rapids, 
where one must land on the west bank, which con- 
sists of steep rocks, very awkward for managing a 
boat from or carrying a burden over. Usually the 
empty boat can be dropped down with a line, but 
when the water is high boat as well as cargo must 
be carried for 100 yards or more, and again, lower 
down, for a less distance. The miners have put 
down rollways along a roughly constructed road 
here to make the portage of the boats easier, and 
some windlasses for hauling the boats along the 
water or out and into it. It would be possible to 
build a good road or tramway along the east bank 
of these rapids without great difficulty; and plans 
are already formulated for a railway to be built 
around the whole three miles of obstruction, in the 
summer of 1898, to connect with the steamboats 
above and below that will no doubt be running next 
year. 

The river below the rapids is fast (about four 
miles an hour) for a few miles, and many gravel 
banks appear. It gradually subsides, however, into 
a quiet stream flowing northwest along the same 
wide valley. No rock is seen here, the banks being 
bluffs of white silt, which turns the clear blue of the 
current above into a cloudy and opaque yellow. 



56 Golden Alaska. 

Thirteen miles (measuring, as usual, along" the 
river) brings the voyager to the mouth of the Tah- 
Keena, a turbid stream about 75 yards wide and 10 
feet deep, which comes in from the west. Its sour- 
ces are at the foot of the Chilkat Pass, where it flows 
out of West Kussoa lake (afterwards named Lake 
Arkell), and was formerly much employed by the 
Chilkat Indians as a means of reaching the interior, 
but was never in favor with the miners, and is now 
rarely followed by the Indians themselves, although 
its navigation from the lake down is reported to be 
easy. 

Eleven and a half .miles of cjuiet boating takes one 
to the head of Lake Labarge. This lake is 31 miles 
long, lies nearly north and south, and is irregularly 
elongated, reaching a width of six miles near the 
lower end. It is 2,100 feet above sea level and is 
bordered everywhere by mountains, those on the 
south having remarkably abrupt and castellated 
forms and carrying summits of white limestone. 
This lake is a very stormy one, and travelers often 
have to wait in camp for several days on its shores 
until calmer weather permits them to go on. This 
whole river valley is a great trough sucking inland 
the prevailing southerly summer winds, and naviga- 
tion on all the lakes is likely to be rough for small 
boats. , 



GOLDKX Ar.ASKA. 57 

The river below Lake Labarge is crooked, and 
at first rapid — six miles or more an hour, and in- 
terrupted by boulders; but it is believed that a stern 
wheel steamer of proper power could ascend at all 
times. The banks are earthen, but little worn, as 
floods do not seem to occur. Twenty-seven miles 
takes one to the mouth of a large tributary from the 
southeast, — the Teslintoo, which Schwatka called 
Newberry River, and which the miners mistakenly 
call Hotalinqu. It comes from the great Lake 
Teslin, which lies across the British Columbia boun- 
dary (Lat. 62 deg.), and is said to be loo miles long; 
and it is further said that an Indian trail connects it 
with the head of canoe navigation on the Taku 
river, by only two long days of portaging. Some 
miners are said to have gone over it in 1876 or ^"jy, 
Schwatka and Hayes came this way; and it may 
form one of the routes of the future, — perhaps even 
a railway route. This river flows through a wide 
and somewhat arid valley, and was roughly pros- 
pected about 1887 by men who reported findmg 
fine gold all along its course, and also in tributaries 
of the lake. As the mountains about the head of 
the lake belong to the Cassiar range, upon whose 
southern slopes the Cassiar mines are situated, there 
is every reason to suppose that gold will ultimately 
be found there in paying quantities. 



58 Golden Alaska. 

This part of the Lewes is called Thirty-mile River, 
under the impression that it is really a tributary of 
the Teslintoo, which is, in fact, wider than the 
Lewes at the junction (Teslintoo, width 575 feet; 
Lewes, 420 feet), but it carries far less water. From 
this confluence the course is north, in a deep, swift, 
somewhat turbid current, through the crooked de- 
files of the Seminow hills. Several auriferous bars 
have been worked here, and some shore-placers, in- 
cluding the rich Cassiar bar. Thirty-one miles be- 
low the Teslintoo the Big Salmon, or D'Abbadie 
River, enters from the southeast — an important river, 
350 feet wide, having clear blue water flowing deep 
and quiet in a stream navigable by steamboats for 
many miles. Its head is about 150 miles away, not 
far from Teslin Lake, in some small lakes reached 
by the salmon, and surrounded by granite moun- 
tains. Prospectors have traced all its course and 
found fine gold in many places. 

Thirty-four miles below the Big Salmon, west- 
north-west, along a comparatiA^ely straight course, 
carries the boatman to the Little Salmon, or Daly 
River, where the valley is so broad that no mountains 
are anywhere in sight, only lines of low hills at a 
distance from the banks. Five miles below this river 
the river makes an abrupt turn to the southwest 
around Eagle's Nest rock, and 18-^- miles beyond 





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Golden Alaska. 6i 

that reaches the Xordenskiold, a small, swift, clear- 
watered tributary from the southwest. The rocks of 
all this part of the river show thin seams of coal, 
and gold has been found on several bars. The cur- 
rent now flows nearly due north and a dozen miles 
below the Nordenskiold carries one to the second 
and last serious obstruction to navigation in the 
Rink rapids, as Schwatlya called them, or Five-fin- 
ger, as they are popularly known, referring to five 
large masses of rock that stand like towers in mid 
channel. These other islands back up the water and 
render its currents strong and turbulent, but will 
ofTer little opposition to a good steamboat. Boat- 
men descending the river are advised to hug the 
right bank, and a landing should be made twenty 
yards above the rapids in any eddy, where a heavily 
loaded boats should be lightened. The run should 
be made close along the shore, and all bad water 
ends when the Little Rink Rapids have been passed. 
Fix miles below. Just below the rapids the small 
Tatshun River comes in from the right. Then the 
valley broadens out. the current quiets down and a 
pleasing landscape greets the eye as bend after bend 
is turned. A long washed bank on the northeast 
side is called Hoo-che-koo Bluff, and soon after 
passing it one finds himself in the midst of the pretty 
Ingersoll archipelago, where the river widens out 



62 Golden Alaska. 

and wanders among hundreds of islets. Fifty-five 
miles by the river below Rink Rapids, the confluence 
of the Lewes and Pelly is reached, and the first sign 
of civilization in the ruins of old Fort Selkirk, with 
such recent and probably temporary occupation as 
circumstances may cause. Before long, undoubt- 
edly, a flourishing permanent settlement will grow 
up in this favorable situation. 

The confluence here of the Lewes and Pelly rivers 
forms the Yukon, which thenceforth pursues an un- 
interrupted course of 1,650 miles to Behring Sea. 
The country about the confluence is low, with ex- 
tensive terrace flats running back to the bases of 
rounded hills and ridges. The Yukon below the 
junction averages about one-quarter of a mile in 
width, and has an average depth of about 10 feet, 
with a surface velocity of 4f miles an hour. A 
good many gravel bars occur, but no shifting sand. 
The general course nearly to White River, 96 miles, 
is a little north of west, and many islands are seen; 
then the river turns to a nearly due north course, 
maintained at Fort Reliance. The White River is 
a powerful stream, plunging down loaded with silt, 
over ever shifting sand bars. Its upper source is 
problematical, but is probably in the Alaskan 
Mountains near the head of the Tenana and Forty- 
mile Creek. 



Golden Alaska. 63 

For the next ten miles the river spreads out to 
more than a mile wide and becomes a maze of isl- 
ands and bars, the main channel being- along the 
western shore, where there is plenty of water. This 
brings one to Stewart river, which is the most im- 
portant right-hand tributary between the Pelly and 
the Porcupine. It enters from the east in the middle 
of a wide valley, and half a mile above its mouth is 
200 yards in width; the current is slow and the water 
dark colored. It has been followed to its headquar- 
ters in the main range of the Rockies, and several 
large branches, on some of which there are remark- 
able falls, have been traced to their sources through 
the forested and snowy hills where they rise. These 
sources are perhaps 200 miles from the mouth, but 
as none of the wanderers were equipped with either 
geographical knowledge or instruments nothing 
definite is known. Reports of traces of precious 
metals have been brought back from many points 
in the Stewart valley, but this information is as 
vague as the other thus far. All reports agree that 
a light draught steamboat could go to the head of 
the Stewart and bar up its feeders. There is a trad- 
ing post at its mouth. 

The succeeding 125 miles holds what is at pres- 
ent the most interesting and populous part of the 
Yukon valley. The river varies from half to three- 



64 Golden Alaska. 

quarters of a mile wide and is full of islands. About 
2T, miles below Stewart River a large stream enters 
from the west called Sixty-mile Creek by the miners, 
who have had a small winter camp and trading store 
there for some years, and have explored its course 
for gold to its rise in the mountains west of the in- 
ternational boundary. Every little tributary has been 
named, among them (going up), Charley's Fork, 
Edwards Creek and Hawley Creek, in Canada, and 
then, on the American side of the line, Gold Creek, 
Miller Creek and Bed Rock Creek. The sand and 
gravel of all these have yielded fine gold and some 
of them, as Miller Creek, have become noted for their 
richness. Forty-four miles below Sixty-mile takes 
one to Dawson City, at the mouth of Klondike River, 
— the center of the highest productiveness and great- 
est excitement during 1897, when the gold fields of 
the interior of Alaska first attracted the attention 
of the world. Leaving to another special chapter an 
account of them, the itinerary may be completed by 
saying that 6| miles below the mouth of the Klon- 
dike is Fort Reliance, an old private trading post of 
no present importance. Twelve and a half miles 
farther the Chan-din-du River enters from the east, 
and 33-2- below that in the mouth of Forty-mile 
Creek, or Cone Hill River, which until the past year 
was the most important mining region of the inte- 



Golden Alaska. 67 

rior. It took its name from the supposition that it 
was 40 miles from Fort Reliance, but the true dis- 
tance is 46 miles. On the south side of the outlet of 
this stream is the old trading post and modern town 
of Forty-Mile, and on the north side the more re- 
cent settlement Cudahy. Both towns arc, of course, 
on the western bank of the Yukon, which is here 
about half a mile wide. Five miles below Cudahy, 
Coal Creek comes in from the east, and nearly 
marks the Alaskan boundary, where a narrowed 
part of the river admits one to United States terri- 
tory. Prominent landmarks here are two great 
rocks, named by old timers Old Man rock, on the 
west bank, and Old ^^^oman, on the east bank, in 
reference to Indian legends attached to them. Some 
twenty miles west of the boundary — the river now 
having turned nearly due west in its general course 
— Seventy-mile, or Klevande Creek, comes in from 
the south, and somewhat below it the Tat-on-duc 
from the north. It was ascended in 1887 by Mr. 
Ogilvie, who describes its lower valley as broad and 
well timbered, but its upper part flows through a 
series of magnificent canons, one of which half a 
mile long, is not more than 50 feet wide with vertical 
walls fully 700 feet in height. There are said to be 
warm sulphur springs along its course, and the In- 
dians regard it as one of the best hunting fields, 



68 Golden Alaska. 

sheep being especially numerous on the mountains 
in which it heads, close by the international boun- 
dary, where it is separated by only a narrow divide 
from Ogilvie River, one of the head streams of the 
Peel river, and also from the head of the Porcupine, 
to which there is an Indian trail. Hence the miners 
call this Sheep River. The rocks along this stream 
are all sandstones, limestone and conglomerates, 
with many thin calcite veins. Large and dense tim- 
ber prevails, and game is abundant. 

Below the mouth of the Tat-on-duc several small 
streams enter, of which the Kandik on the north 
and the Kolto or Charley's River — at the mouth of 
which there used to be the home of an old Indian 
notability named Charley — are most important. 
About 1 60 miles from the boundary the Yukon flats 
are reached, and the center of another important 
mining district — that of Birch Creek and the Upper 
Tenana — at Circle City, the usual terminus of the 
trip up the Lower Yukon from St Michael. 



GuLOKX AlasKv\. 69 

HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS OF 
THE UPPER YUKON VALLEY. 

The sources of the Yukon are just within the 
northern boundary of British Cokmibia (Lat. 62 
cleg.) among a mass of mountains forming a part 
of the great upHft of the Coast range, continuous 
with the Sierras of Cahfornia and the Puget Sound 
coast. Here spring the sources of the Stikeen, flow- 
ing southwest to the Pacific, of the Eraser, flowing 
south through British Columbia, and of the Liard 
flowing northeasterly to the Mackenzie. Headwa- 
ters of the Stikeen and j^iard interlock, indeed, 
along an extensive or sinuous watershed having an 
elevation of 3,000 feet or less and extending east and 
west. There are, however, many wide and com- 
paratively level bottom lands scattered throughout 
this region and numerous lakes. The coast ranges 
here have an average width of about eighty miles 
and border the continent as far north as Lynn 
Canal, where they trend inland behind the St. Elias 
Alps. Many of their peaks exceed 8,000 feet in 
height, but few districts have been explored west. 
Eastward of this mountain axis, and separated 
from it by the valleys of the Eraser and Columbia 
in the south and the Yukon northward, is the Con- 



70 Golden Alaska. 

tinental Divide, or Rocky Mountains proper, which 
is broken through (as noted above) by the Laird, 
but north of that caiion-bound river forms the 
watershed between the Liard and Yukon and be- 
tween the Yukon and Mackenzie. These summits 
attain a height of 7,000 to 9,000 feet, and rise from 
a very compHcated series of ranges extending north- 
ward to the Arctic Ocean, and very httle explored. 
The valley of the Yukon, then, lies between the 
Rocky Mountains, separating its drainage basin 
from that of the Mackenzie, and the Coast range 
and St. Elias Alps separating it from the sea. Gran- 
ite is the principal rock in both these great lines of 
watershed-uplift, and all the mountains show the ef- 
fects of an extensive glaciation, and all the higher 
peaks still bear local remnants of the ancient ice- 
sheet. 

The headwaters of the great river are gathered 
into three principal streams. First, the Lewes, east- 
ernmost, with its large tributaries, the Teslintoo and 
Big Salmon; second,' the Pelly, with its great west- 
ern tributary, the MacMillon. 

The Lewes River has been described. It was 
known to the fur traders as early as 1840, and the 
Chilkat and Chilkoot passes were occasionally used 
by their Indian couriers from that time on. The 
gold fields in British Columbia from 1863 onwards 




SCENE IN JUNEAU - MOUNTAINS AfJD i: 



GijLDKX Alaska. 73 

stimulated prospecting in the northern and coastal 
parts of that province, and in 1872 prospectors 
reached the actual headwaters of the Lewes from the 
south, but were probably not aware of it; and that 
country was not scientifically examined until the re- 
connoisance of Dr. G. ^I. Dawson in 1887. In 1866 
Ketchum and La Barge, of the Western Union Tel- 
egraph survey, ascended the Lewes as far as the 
lakes still called Ketchum and La Barge. In 1883 
Lieut. Frederick Schwatka, U. S. A., and an assis- 
tant named Hayes, and several Indians, made their 
way across from Taka inlet to the head of Tahgish 
(a Tako) Lake, and descended the Lewes on a raft 
to Fort Selkirk, studying and naming the valley. 
From Fort Selkirk an entirely new route was fol- 
lowed toward the mountains forming the divide be- 
tween the Yukon and the White and Copper rivers, 
which flow to the Gulf of Alaska, north of Mt. St. 
Elias. After discovering a pass little more than 
5,000 feet high, they struck the Chityna River and 
followed that to the Copper River and thence to the 
coast. The Copper River \'alley was thoroughly ex- 
plored somewhat later by Lieuts. Abcrcrombie and 
Allen, U. S. A., who added greatly to knowledge 
of that large river, which, however, seems to have 
no good harbor at its mouth. The miners began to 
use the Chilkoot Pass and the Lewes River route to 



74 Golden Alaska. 

the Yukon district in 1884. Some additions were 
made to geography in this region by an exploring 
expedition despatched to Alaska in 1890 by Frank 
Leslie's Weekly, under Messrs. A. J. Wells, E. J. 
Glave and A. B. Schanz. They entered by way of 
Chilkat pass and came to a large lake at the head 
of the Tah-keena tributary of the Lewes, which they 
named Lake Arkell, though it was probably the 
same earlier described by the Drs. Krause. Here 
Mr. Glave left the party and striking across the coast 
range southward discovered the headwaters of the 
Alsekh and descended to Dry Bay. At Forty-mile 
creek Mr. Wells and a party crossed over into the 
basin of the Xanana and increased the knowledge of 
that river. Mr. Schanz went down the Yukon 
and explored the lower region. In 1892 Mr. Glave 
again went to Alaska, demonstrated the possibility 
of taking pack horses over the Chilkat trail, and 
with an aid named Dalton made an extensive jour- 
ney southward along the crest of the watershed be- 
tween the Yukon valley and the coast. 

Turning now to the Pelly, we find that this was 
the earliest avenue of discovery. The Pelly rises in 
lakes under the 62nd parallel, just over a divide from 
the Finlayson and Frances Lake, the head of the 
Frances River, the northern source of the Liard, and 
this region was entered by the Hudson Bay Com- 



Golden Alaska. 75 

pany as early as 1834, and gradually exploring the 
Laird River and its tributaries, in 1840 Robert Cam- 
bell crossed over the divide north of Lake Finlay- 
son (at the head of the Frances), and discovered (at 
a place called Pelly Eanks) a large river flowing 
northwest which he named Pelly. In 1843 he de- 
scended the river to its confluence with the Lewes 
(which he then named), and in 1848 he built a post 
for the H. B. Company at that point, calling it Fort 
Selkirk. This done, in 1850, Campbell floated down 
the river as far as the mouth of the Porcupine, 
where three years previously (1847) Fort Yukon had 
been established by Mr. Murray, who (founded by 
James Bell in 1842) crossed over from the mouth 
of the Mackenzie. The Yukon may thus be said 
to have been "discovered" at several points inde- 
pendently. The Russians, who knew it only at the 
mouth, called it Kwikhpak, after an Eskimo name. 
The English at Fort Yukon, learned that name from 
the Indians there, and the upper river was the Pelly. 
The English and Russian traders soon met, and 
when Campbell came down in 1850 the identity of 
the whole stream was established. The name Yu- 
kon gradually took the place of all others on English 
maps and is now recognized for the whole stream 
from the junction of the Lewes and Pelly to the 
delta. 



yd Golden Alaska. 

The Yukon basin, east of the Alaskan boundary, 
is known in Canada as the Yukon district, and con- 
tains about 150,000 square miles. This is nearly 
equal to the area of France, is greater than that of 
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 
by 71,000 square miles, and nearly three times big- 
ger than that of the New England states. To this 
must be added an area of about 180,000 square 
miles, west of the boundary, drained by the Yukon 
upon its way to the sea through Alaska. Neverthe- 
less, Dr. G. M. Dawson and other students of the 
matter are of the opinion that the river does not dis- 
charge as much water as does the Mackenzie — nor 
could it be expected to do so, since the drainage 
area of the Mackenzie is more than double that of 
the Yukon, while the average annual precipitation 
of rain over the two areas seems to be substantially 
similar. Remembering these figures and that the 
basin of the Mississippi has no less than 1,225,000 
square miles as compared with the 330,000 square 
miles of the Yukon basin, it is plain that the state- 
ment often heard that the Yukon is next to the 
Mississippi in s'ize, is greatly exaggerated. In fact, 
its proportions, from all points of view, are exceeded 
by those of the Nile, Ganges, St. Lawrence and 
several other rivers of considerably less importance 
than the Mississippi. 



Golden- Alaska. 79 

Resuming the historical outHne, a short paragraph 
will suffice to complete the simple story down to 
the year 1896. 

Robert Campbell had scarcely returned from his 
river voyage to his duties at Fort Selkirk, when 
he discovered that its location in the angle between 
the rivers was untenable, owing to ice-jams and 
floods. The station was therefore moved, in the sea- 
son of 1852 across to the west bank of the Yukon, 
a short distance below the confluence, and new 
buildings were erected. These had scarcely been 
completely, when, on August ist, a band of Chilkat 
Indians from the coast came down the river and 
early in the morning seized upon the post, surpris- 
ing Mr. Campbell in bed, and ordered him to take 
his departure before night. They "were not at all 
rough with him or his few men, but simply insisted 
that they depart, which they did, taking such per- 
sonal luggage as they could put into a boat and 
starting down stream. The Indians then pillaged the 
place, and after feasting on all they could eat and 
appropriating what they could carry away, set fire 
to the remainder and burned the whole place to the 
ground. One chimney still stands to mark the spot, 
and others lie where they fell. This act was not 
dictated by wanton destructiveness on the part of 
the Chilkats — bad as they undoubtedly were and 



8o Golden Alaska. 

are; but was in pursuance of a theory. The estab- 
hshment of the post there interfered with the monop- 
oly of trade that they had enjoyed theretofore, with 
all the Indians of the interior, to whom they brought 
salable goods from the coast, taking in exchange 
furs, copper, etc., at an exhorbitant profit, which 
they enforced by their superior brutality. The Hud- 
son Bay Company was robbing them of this, hence 
the demolition of the post, which was too remote 
to be profitably sustained against such opposition. 
A little way down the river, Mr. Campbell met a 
fleet of boats bringing up his season's goods, and 
many friendly Indians. These were eager to pursue 
the robbers, but Campbell thought it best not to do 
so. He turned the supply-boats back to Fort Yukon 
and led his own' men up the Pelly and over the pass 
to the Frances and so down the Liard to Fort Simp- 
son, on the Mackenzie. Such is the story of the 
ruins of Fort Selkirk. Fort Yukon flourished as the 
only trading post until the purchase of Alaska by 
the United States, when Captain Raymond, an army 
ofificer, was sent to inform the factor there that his 
post was on United States territory, and require 
him to leave. He did so as soon as Rampart House 
could be built to take its place up the Porcupine. 
Old Fort Yukon then fell into ruins, and Rampart 
House itself was soon abandoned. In 1873 an op- 



Golden Alaska. 8i 

position appeared in the independent trading house 
of Harper & McOucstion, men who had come into 
the country from the south,' after long experience 
in the fur trade. They had posts at various points, 
occupied I'^ort Reliance for several years, and in 
i8S6 established a post at the mouth of the Stewart 
River for the miners who had begun to gather there 
two years before. Alany maps mark "Reed's House" 
as a point on the upper Stewart, but no such a 
Irading-post ever existed there, although there was 
a fishing station and shelter-hut on one of its upper 
branches at an early day. This firm became the rep- 
resentatives of the Alaska Commercial Company (a 
San Francisco corporation) and opened a store in 
1S87 at Forty MWe, where they still do business. 

Gold Discoveries. — The presence of fine float gold 
in river sands was early discovered by the Hudson 
Bay Company men, but in accordance with the 
former policy of that company, no mining was done 
and as little said about it as possible. The rich- 
ness of the Cassiar mines led to some prospecting 
northward as early as 1872, and by 1880 wander- 
ing gold hunters had penetrated to the Testintos, 
where for several years $8 to $10 a day of fine gold 
was sluiced out during the season by the small col- 
ony. In 1886 Cassiar Bar, on the Lewes, below 
there, was opened, and a party of four took out 



82 Golden Alaska. 

$6,000 in 30 days, while other neighboring bars 
yielded fair wages. By that time Stewart River was 
becoming attractive, and many miners worked plac- 
ers there profitably in 1885, '86 and '87. During 
the fall of 1886 three or four men took the engines 
out of the little steamboat "New Racket," which 
was laid up for the winter there, and used them to 
drive a set of pumps lifting water into sluice-boxes; 
and with this crude machinery each man cleared 
$1,000 in less than a month. A judicious estimate 
is, that the Stewart River placers yielded $100,000 
in 1885 and '86. 

Prospecting went on unremittingly, but nothing 
else was fovmd of promise until 1886, when coarse 
gold was reported upon Forty Mile Creek, or the 
Shitando River, as it was known to the Indians, and 
a local rush took place to its caiions, the principal 
attraction being Franklin Gulch, named after its dis- 
coverer. Three or four hundred men gathered there 
by the season of 1887, and all did well. This stream 
is a "bed-rock" creek, — that is, one in the bed of 
which there is very little drift; and in many places 
the bed-rock was scraped with knives to get the lit- 
tle loose stuff out of crannies. Some nuggets were 
found. At its mouth are extensive bars along the 
Yukon, which carry gold throughout their depth. 
During 1888 the season was very unfavorable and 



GOLDEX Al ASKA. 85 

not much accomplished. Sixty Mile Creek was 
brought to notice, and Miller Gulch proved richer 
than usual. It is one of the headwaters of Sixty 
'SIWq, and some 70 miles from the mouth of the 
river where, in 1892, a trading- store, saw-mill and 
little wintering-town was begun. ]\Iiller Creek is 
about 7 miles long, and its valley is filled with vast 
deposits of auriferous drift. In 1892 rich strikes 
were made and 125 miners gathered there, paying 
$10 a day for help, • and man_\- making fortunes. One 
clean-up of 1,100 ounces was reported. Glacier 
Creek, a neighboring stream, exhibited equal 
chances and drew many claimants, some of whom 
migrated thither in mid-winter, drawing their sleds 
through the woods and rocks with the murcury 30 
degrees below zero. All of these gulches and other 
golden headwaters on both Forty Mile and Sixty 
]\rile Creek, are west of the boundary in xA-laska; but 
the mouths of the main streams and supply points 
are in Canadian territory. In all, the great ob- 
stacle is the difficulty of getting water up on the 
bars without expensive machinery; and the same is 
true of the rich gravel along the banks of the Yukon 
itself. Birch Creek was the next find of import- 
ance, and was promising enough to draw the larger 
part of the local population, which by this time had 
been considerably increased, for the news of the rich- 



86 Golden Alaska. 

ness of the Forty Mile gTilches had reached the out- 
side world and attracted adventurous men and not 
a few women from the coast not only, but from 
British Columbia and the United States. A rival to 
Harper & McOuestion, agents of the Alaska Com- 
mercial Company, appeared in the North American 
Transportation and Trading Company, which in- 
creased the transportation service on the Yukon 
River, by which most of the new arrivals entered, 
and by establishing large competitive stores at Fort 
Cudahy (Forty Mile) and elsewhere reduced the 
price of food and other necessaries. About this 
time, also, the Canadian government sent law of- 
ficers and a detachment of mounted police, so that 
the Yukon District began to take a recognized place 
in the world. 

Birch Creek is really a large river rising in the 
lauana Hills, just west of the boundary and flowing 
northwest, parallel with the Yukon, to a debouch- 
ment some 20 miles west of Fort Yukon. Between 
the two rivers lie the "Yukon Flats," and at one 
point they are separated by only six miles. Here, 
at the Yukon end of the road arose Circle City, so- 
called -from its proximity to the Arctic Circle. This 
is an orderly little town of regular streets, and has 
a recorder of claims, a store, etc. 

Birch Creek has been thoroughly explored, and 



Golden Alaska. 87 

in 1894 yielded good results. The gold was in 
coarse flakes and nuggets, so that $40 a day was 
made by some men, while all did well. The drift 
is not as deep here as in most other streams, and 
water can l)c applied more easily and copiously, — 
a vast advantage. ]\Iolymute, Crooked, Independ- 
ence, Mastadon and Preacher creeks are the most 
noteworthy tributaries cf this rich field. 

The Koyukuk River, which flows from the bord- 
ers of the Arctic Ocean, gathering many mountain 
tributaries, to enter the Yukon at X^ulato, was also 
prospected in 1892, '93 and '94, and indications of 
good placers have been discovered there, but the 
northerly, exposed and remote situation has caused 
them to receive little attention thus far. 



THE KLONDIKE. 

During the autumn of 1896 several men and wo- 
men, none of whom were "old miners," discouraged 
by poor results lower down the river resolved to 
try prospecting in the Klondike gulch. They were 
laughed at and argued with ; were told that prospect- 
ors years ago had been all over that valley, and 
found only the despised "flour gold," which was too 
line to pay for washing it out. Nevertheless they 
persisted and went at work. Only a short time 
elapsed, when, on one of the lower southside 
branches of the stream they found pockets of flakes 
and nuggets of gold far richer than anything Alaska 
had ever shown before. They named the stream 
Bonanza, and a small tributary El Dorado. Others 
came and nearly everyone succeeded. Before spring 
nearly a ton and a half of gold had been taken from 
the frozen ground. Nuggets weighing a pound 
(troy) were found. A thousand dollars a day was 
sometimes saved despite the rudeness of the methods, 
but these things happened where pockets were 
struck. Probably the total clean-up froin January 
to June was not less than $1,500,000. The report 



Golden Alaska. ^t 

spread and all those in the interior of Alaska con- 
centrated there, where a "camp" of tents and shan- 
ties soon sprang up at the mouth of the Klondike 
called Dawson City. A correspondent of the New 
York Sun describes it as beautifully situated, and 
a very quiet, orderly town, due to the strict super- 
vision of the Canadian mounted police, who allowed 
no pistols to be carried, but a great place for gam- 
bling with high stakes. It bids fair to become the 
mining metropolis of the northwest, and had about 
3,000 inhabitants before the advance-guard of the 
present ''rush" reached there. 

Hundreds of claims were staked out and worked 
in all the little gulches opening along Bonanza, El- 
dorado, Hunker, Bear and other tributaries of the 
Klondike, and of Indian River, a stream thirty miles 
south of it, and a greater number seem to be of 
equal richness with those first worked. All this is 
within a radius south and east of 20 miles from Daw- 
son City, and most of it far nearer. The country 
is rough, wooded hills, and the same trouble as to 
water is met there as elsewhere, yet riches were ob- 
tained by many men in a few weeks without ex- 
hausting their claims. 

So remote and shut in has this region been in the 
winter that no word of this leaked out until the 
river opened and a party of successful miners came 



92 Golden Alaska. 

down to the coast and took passage on the steamer 
Excelsior for San Francisco. They arrived on 
July 14, and no one suspected that there was any- 
thing extraordinary in the passenger list or cargo, 
until a procession of weather beaten men began a 
march to the Selby Smelting works, and there began 
to open sacks of dust and nuggets, until the heap 
made something not seen in San Francisco since 
the days of '49. The news flashed over the world, 
and aroused a fire of interest; and when three days 
later the Portland came into Seattle, bringing other 
miners and over $1,000,000 in gold, there was a 
rush to go north which bids fair to continue for 
months to come, for one of the articles of faith in 
the creed of the Yukon miner is that many other 
gulches wall be found as rich as these. One elderly 
man, who w'ent in late last fall and with partners 
took four claims on Eldorado Creek, told a reporter 
that his pickings had amounted to $112,000, and 
that he was confident that the ground left was worth 
$2,000,000 more. "I want to say," he exclaims, 
"that I believe there is gold in every creek in Alas- 
ka. Certain on the Klondike the claims are not 
spotted. One seems to be as good as another. It's 
gold, gold, gold, all over. It's yards wide and deep. 
All you have to do is to run a hole down." 

One might go on quoting such rhapsodies, aris- 



Golden Alaska. 93 

ing from success, to end of the book, but it is 
needless, for every newspaper has been full of them 
for a month. 

One man and his wife got $135,000; another, 
formerly a steamboat deck-hand, $150,000; another, 
$115,000; a score or more over $50,000, and so on. 
These sums were savings after having the heavy ex- 
penses of the winter, and most of them had dug 
out only a small part of their ground. 

It is curious in view of this success to read the 
only descriptive note the present writer can dis- 
cover in early writings as to this gold river. It 
occurs in Ogilvie's report of his explorations of 
1887, and is as follows: "Six and a half miles above 
Reliance the Tou-Dac River of the Indians (Deer 
River of Schwatka) enter from the east. It is a 
small river about 40 yards wide at the mouth and 
shallow; the water is clear and transparent and of 
a beautiful blue color. The Indians catch great 
numbers of salmon here. A miner had prospected 
up this river for an estimated distance of 40 miles 
in the season of 1887. I did not see him." 



94 Golden Alaska. 

THE METHODS OF PLACER MINING 

in the Klondike region and elsewhere along the 
Yukon are different from those pursued else- 
where, owing to the fact that from a point 
about three feet below the surface the ground 
is permanently frozen. The early men tried to 
strip off the gravel down to the gold lying in its 
lower levels or beneath it, upon the bed rock, and 
found it exceedingly slow and laborious work; more- 
over, it was only during the short summer that any 
work could be done. Now, by the aid of fires they 
sink shafts and then tunnel along the bed rock 
where the gold lies. A returned miner described 
the process as follows, pointing out the great ad-, 
vantage of being able to work under ground during 
the winter: 

"The miners build fires over the area where they 
wish to work and keep these lighted over that terri- 
tory for the space of twenty-four hours. Then the 
gravel will be melted and softened to a depth of per- 
haps six inches. This is then taken off and other 
fires are built until the gold bearing layer is reached. 
When the shaft is down that far other fires are built 
at the bottom, against the sides of the layer and tun- 
nels made in the same manner. Blasting will do 



Golden Alaska. 97 

no good, the charge not cracking off but blowing 
out of the hole. The matter taken out, and contain- 
ing the gold is piled up until spring, when the tor- 
rents come down, and is panned and cradled by 
these. It is certain!}^ very hard labor." 

Another quotation may be given as a practical ex- 
ample of this process: 

"The gold so far as has been taken from Bonanza 
and Eldorado, both well named, for the richness of 
the placers are truly marvelous. Eldorado, thirty 
miles long, is staked the whole length and as far as 
worked has paid. 

"One of our passengers, who is taking home 
$100,000 with him, has worked one hundred feet of 
his ground and refused $200,000 for the remainder, 
and confidently expects to clean up $400,000 and 
more. He has in a bottle $212 from one pan of dirt. 
His pay dirt while being washed averaged $250 an 
hour to each man shoveling in. Two others of our 
miners who worked their own claim cleaned up 
$6,000 from one da)'s washing. 

"There is about fifteen feet of dirt above bed rock, 
the pay streak averaging from four to six feet, which 
is tunnelled out while the ground is frozen. Of 
course, the ground taken out is thawed by building 
fires, and when the thaw comes and water rushes 
in they set their sluices and wash the dirt. Two of 



98 Golden Alaska. 

our fellows thought a small bird in the hand worth 
a large one in the bush, and sold their claims for 
$45,000, getting $4,500 down, and the remainder to 
be paid in monthly installments of $10,000 each. 
The purchasers had no more than $5,000 paid. 
They were twenty days thawing and getting out dirt. 
Then there was no water to sluice with, but one 
fellow made a rocker, and in ten days took out the 
$10,000 for the first installment. So, tunnelling and 
rocking, they took out $40,000 before there was 
water to sluice with." 



LEGAL ASPECT OF ALASKA, 

Commissioner Hermann, of the General Land Of- 
fice, has announced that the following laws of the 
United States extend over Alaska, where the general 
land laws do not apply : 

First — The mineral land laws of the United States. 

Second — Town-site laws, which provide for the 
incorporation of town-sites and acquirement of title 
thereto from the United States Government by the 
town-site trustees. 



Golden Alaska. 99 

Third — The laws provi(Hng- for trade and manu- 
factures, giving each quaUfied person 160 acres of 
land in a square and compact form. 

The coal land regulations are distinct from the 
mineral regulations or laws, and as in the case of 
the general land laws Alaska is expressly exempt 
from this jurisdiction. 

On the part of Canada, however, the provisions of 
the Real Property act of the Northwest Territories 
will be extended to the Yukon country by an order 
in council, a register will be appointed, and a land 
title office will be established. 

The act approved May 17, 1884, providing a civil 
government for Alaska, has this language as to 
mines and mining privileges: 

"The laws of the United States relating to min- 
ing claims and rights incidental thereto shall, on 
and after the passage of this act, be in full force 
and effect in said district of Alaska, subject to such 
regulations as may be made by the Secretary of 
the Interior and approved by the President," and 
"parties who have located mines or mining priv- 
ileges therein, under the United States laws ap- 
plicable to the public domain, or have occupied or 
improved or exercised acts of ownership over such 
claims, shall not be disturbed therein, but shall be 
allowed to perfect title by payment so provided for." 



loo Golden Alaska. 

There is still more general authority. Without 
the special authority, the act of July 4, 1866, says: 
"All valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to 
the United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, 
are hereby declared to be free and open to explora- 
tion and purchase, and lands in which these arc 
found to occupation and purchase by citizens of the 
United States and by those who have declared an 
intention to become such, under the rules prescribed 
by law and according to local customs or rules of 
miners in the several mining districts, so far as the 
same are applicable and not inconsistent with the 
laws of the United States." 

The patenting of mineral lands in Alaska is not 
a new thing, for that work has been going on, as 
the cases have come in from time to time, since 
1884. 

One of the difficulties that local capitalists find in 
their negotiations for purchase of mining properties 
on the Yukon is the lack of authenticated records 
of owners of claims. Different practices prevail on 
the two sides of the line and cause more or less con- 
fusion. The practice has been at most of the new 
camps to call a miners' meeting at which one of the 
parties was elected recorder, and he proceeded to 
enter the bearings of stakes and natural marks to 
define claims. Sometimes the recorder would give 



Golden Alaska. 103 

a receipt for a fee allowed by common consent for 
recording, and also keep a copy for future reference, 
but in a majority of cases even this formality was 
dispensed with, and the only record kept was the 
rough minutes made at the time. 

On the Canadian side a dififerent state of affairs 
exists. The Dominion Government has sent a com- 
missioner who is empowered to report officially all 
claims, and while no certificate is issued to the own- 
ers thereof, properties are thoroughly defined and 
their metes and bounds established. The commis- 
sioner in the Klondike district, whose name is Con- 
stantinc, also exercises semi-judicial functions, and 
settles disputes to the best of his ability, appeal lying 
to the Ottawa Government. 

As to courts and the execution of civil and criminal 
law gencrallw none were existent in the upper Yu- 
kon \'alley on the American side of the line during 
1897. The nearest United States judge was at Sit- 
ka. At Circle City and other centers of population 
the people had organized into a sort of town-meet- 
ing for the few pul)]ic matters required; and a sort 
of vigilance committee took the place of constituted 
authority and police. As a matter of fact, however, 
the people were quiet and law-abiding and little need 
for the machinery of law is likely to arise before 
courts, etc., are set up. A movement toward send- 



104 Golden Alaska. 

ing a garrison of United States troops thither was 
vetoed by the War Department. 

Canada, however, awoke to the reaHzation that 
her interests were in jeopardy, and took early «teps 
to profit by the wealth which had been discovered 
within her borders and the international business 
that resulted. The natural feeling among the Ca- 
nadians was, and is, that the property belongs to 
the Canadian public, and that no good reason exists 
why the mineral and other wealth should be ex- 
hausted at once, mainly by outsiders, as has largely 
happened in the case of Canada's forests. A pro- 
hibitory policy was urged by some, but this seemed 
neither wise nor practicable; and the Dominion 
Government set at work to save as large a share as 
it could. As there are gold fields on the Alaska 
side of the line, and the approaches lie through 
United States territory, a spirit of reciprocal accom- 
modation was necessary. One difificulty has been 
averted last spring by President Cleveland's veto 
of the Immigration bill, one provision of which 
would have prevented Canadian laborers drawing 
wages in this country, and probably would have pro- 
voked a retaliatory act. 

Canada has already placed customs ofBcers on the 
passes and at the Yukon crossing of the boundarv 
to collect customs duties not only on merchandise 



Golden Alaska. 105 

but on miner's personal outfits. There is practically 
no exception, and the duty comes below 20 per cent, 
on but few articles. On most of the goods the duty 
is from 30 to 35 per cent., and in several instances 
higher, but the matter may be very simply ad- 
justed by purchasing tools and outfits in Victoria 
or \'ancouver, for thus far the United States has 
placed no corresponding obstruction in the way of 
Canadian travellers to the gold-fields, but, on the 
contrary, has made Dyea a sub-port of entry, largely 
to accommodate British transportation lines. The 
Canadian Government is represented in that region 
now only by customs of^cers and 20 mounted police, 
but it is taking steps to garrison the whole upper 
Yukon \'alley with its mounted police, — a body of 
officers, whose functions are half military, half civil, 
and which, it may as well be conceded once for all, 
cannot be trifled with. There is no question but 
that they will do their level best to enforce the laws 
to the utmost. The commander of each detachment 
will be constituted a magistrate of limited powers, 
so that civil examinations and trials may be speedily 
conducted. 

The plan is to erect a strong post a short distance 
north of the sixtieth degree of latitude, just above 
the northern boundary of British Columbia, and be- 
yond the head of the Lynn Canal, where the Chil- 



io6 Golden Alaska. 

koot Pass and the White Pass converge. This post 
will command the southern entrance to the whole 
of that territory. Further on small police posts will 
be established, about fifty miles apart, down to Fort 
Selkirk, while another general post will patrol the 
river near the international boundary, with head- 
quarters, probably, in the Klondike valley. 

The mining regulations of Canada, applying to 
the Yukon placer claims, are as follows: 

"Bar diggings" shall mean any part of a river 
over which water extends when the water is in its 
flooded state and which is not covered at low water. 
"Mines on benches" shall be known as bench dig- 
gings, and shall for the purpose of defining the size 
of such claims be excepted from dry diggings. "Dry 
diggings" shall mean any mine over which a river 
never extends. "Miner" shall mean a male or fe- 
male over the age of eighteen, but not under that 
age. "Claims" shall mean the personal right of 
property in a placer mine or diggings during the 
time for which the grant of such mine or diggings 
is made. "Legal post" shall mean a stake standing 
not less than four feet above the ground and squared 
on four sides for at least one foot from the top. 
"Close season" shall mean the period of the year 
during which placer mining is generally suspended. 
The period to be fixed by the gold commissioner 



Golden Alaska. 109 

in whose district the claim is situated. "LocaHty" 
shall mean the territory along a river (tributary of 
the Yukon) and its affluents. "Alineral" shall in- 
clude all minerals whatsoever other than coal. 

1. Bar diggings. A strip of land 100 feet wide 
at highwater mark and thence extending along the 
river to its lowest water level. 

2. The sides of a claim for bar diggings shall be 
two parallel lines run as nearly as possible at right 
angles to the stream, and shall be marked by four 
legal posts, one at each end of the claim at or about 
high water mark; also one at each end of the claim 
at or about the edge of the water. One of the posts 
shall be legibly marked with the name of the miner 
and the date upon which the claim is staked. 

3. Dry diggings shall be 100 feet square and shall 
have placed at each of its four corners a legal post. 
upon one of which shall be legibly marked the name 
of the miner and the date upon the claim was 
staked. 

4. Creek and river claims shall be 500 feet long, 
measured in the direction of the mineral course of 
the stream, and shall extend in width from base to 
base of the hill or bench on each side, but when the 
hills or benches are less than 100 feet apart the 
claim may be 100 feet in depth. The sides of a 
claim shall be two parallel lines run as nearly as 



1 10 Golden Alaska. 

possible at right angles to the stream. The sides 
shall be marked with legal posts at or about the 
edge of the water and at the rear boundary of the 
claim. One of the legal posts at the stream shall 
be legibly marked with the name of the miner and 
the date upon which the claim was staked. 

5. Bench claims shall be 100 feet square. 

6. In defining the size of claims they shall be 
measured horizontally, irrespective of inequalities on 
the surface of the ground. 

7. If any person or persons shall discover a new 
mine and such discovery shall be established to the 
satisfaction of the gold commissioner, a claim for 
the bar diggings 750 feet in length may be granted. 
A new stratum of auriferous earth or gravel situated 
in a locality where the claims are abandoned shall 
for this purpose be deemed a new mine, although 
the same locality shall have previously been worked 
at a different level. 

8. The forms of application for a grant for placer 
mining and the grant of the same shall be according 
to those made, provided or supplied by the gold 
commissioner. 

9. A claim shall be recorded with the gold com- 
missioner in whose district it is situated within three 
days after the location thereof if it is located within 
ten miles of the commissioner's oflfice. One day 



Golden Alaska. hi 

extra shall be allowed for making such record for 
every additional ten miles and fraction thereof 

ID. In the event of the absence of the gold com- 
missioner from his office for entry a claim may be 
granted by any person whom he may appoint to 
perform his duties in his absence. 

11. Entry shall not be granted for a claim which 
has not been staked by the applicant in person in 
the manner specified in these resolutions. An affi- 
davit that the claim was staked out by the applicant 
shall be embodied in the application. 

12. An entry fee of $15 shall be charged the first 
year and an annual fee of $100 for each of the fol- 
lowing years: 

13. After recording a claim the removal of any 
post by the holder thereof or any person acting 
in his behalf for the purpose of changing the boun- 
daries of his claim shall act as a forfeiture of the 
claim. 

14. The entry of every holder for a grant for 
placer mining must be renewed and his receipt re- 
linquished and replaced every year, the entry fee be- 
ing paid each year. 

15. No miner shall receive a grant for more than 
one mining claim in the same locality; but the same 
miner may hold any number of claims by purchase, 
and any number of miners may unite to work their 



112 Golden Alaska. 

claims in common upon such terms as they may ar- 
range, provided such agreement be registered with 
the Gold Commissioner and a fee of $15 for each 
registration. 

16. And miner may sell, mortgage, or dispose of 
his claims, provided such disposal be registered with 
and a fee of $5 paid to the Gold Commissioner. 

17. Every miner shall, during the continuance of 
his grant, have the exclusive right of entry upon his 
own claim for the miner-like working thereof, and 
the construction of a residence thereon, and shall be 
entitled exclusively to all the proceeds realized there- 
from; but he shall have no surface rights therein, 
and the Gold Commissioner may grant to the hold- 
ers of adjacent claims such rights of entry thereon 
as may be absolutely necessary for the working of 
llieir claims, upon such terms as may to him seem 
reasonable. He may also grant permits to miners 
to cut timber thereon for their own use, upon pay- 
ment of the dues prescribed by the regulation in 
that behalf. 

18. Every miner shall be entitled to the use of so 
much of the water naturally flowing through or 
past his claim, and not already lawfully appropriated 
as shall in the opinion of the Gold Commissioner 
be necessary for the due working thereof, and shall 
be entitled to drain his own claim free of charge. 



..^^Sjfe'^ 




CHILKOOT PASS. 



Golden Alaska. 115 

19. A claim shall be deemed to be abandoned 
and open to occupation and entry by any person 
when the same shall have remained unworked on 
working days by the guarantee thereof or by some 
person in his behalf for the space of seventy-two 
hours unless sickness or some other reasonable 
cause may be shown to the satisfaction of the Gold 
Commissioner, or unless the guarantee is absent on 
leave given by the commissioner, and the Gold Com- 
missioner, upon obtaining satisfactory evidence that 
this provision is not being complied with, may can- 
cel the entry given in the claim. 

20. If the land upon which a claim has been lo- 
cated is not the property of the Crown it will be 
necessary for the person who applies for entry to 
furnish proof that he has acquired from the owner 
of the land the surface right before entry can be 
granted. 

21. If the occupier of the lands has not received 
a patent thereof the purchase money of the surface 
rights must be paid to the Crown and a patent of 
the surface rights will issue to the party who ac- 
quired the mining rights. The money so collected 
will cither be refunded to the occupier of the land 
when he is entitled to a patent there or will be cred- 
ited to him on account of payment of land. 

22. When the party obtaining the mining rights 



ii6 Golden Alaska. 

cannot make an arrangement with the owner there- 
of for the acquisition of the surface rights it shall be 
lawful for him to give notice to the owner or his 
agents or the occupier to appoint an arbitrator to 
act with another arbitrator named by him in order 
to award the amount of compensation to which the 
owner or occupier shall be entitled. 

The royalty and reserve additions to this, made 
since the recent discoveries and on account of them, 
are as follows: 

1. A royalty of lo per cent will be collected for 
the government on all amounts taken out of any one 
claim up to $500 a week, and after that 20 per cent. 
This royalty will be collected on gold taken from 
streams already being worked, but in regard to all 
future discoveries the government proposes 

2. That upon every river and creek where mining 
locations shall be staked out every alternate claim 
shall be the property of the government. 

These regulations, say the Canadians, are made 
with the purpose of developing a country, which, 
as elsewhere shown in this pamphlet, is capable of 
supporting a large permanent population and varied 
industries. Whether they can be enforced remains 
to be seen, and dif^culties will certainly attend the 
collection of a royalty on gold-dust. The effect of 
these regulations, it is believed by the authors, will 



Golden Alaska. 117 

be to encourage permanent settlement and the treat- 
ment of mining as a regular industry and not simply 
as an adventurous speculation. Another effect, un- 
doubtedly, will be to cause immigrants, including 
Canadians themselves, to prospect and mine on the 
United States side of the line, whenever they have 
an equal opportunity for success. 

The boundary dispute does not as yet seriously 
affect the question or rights and privileges in the 
new gold regions, as the disputed part of the line, 
southeast of Alaska, runs through a region not yet 
occupied, and practically the whole of Lynn Canal 
is administered by the United States, and the Ca- 
nadians act as though it were decided that their 
boundary was farther inland than some of them 
pretend. From Mt. St. Elias north, the 141st me- 
ridian is the undisputed boundary, and this has been 
fixed by an international commission, crossing the 
Yukon at a marked point near the mouth of Forty 
Mile Creek. Nearly or quite all of the diggings 
upon which are written Alaskan territory, as also 
are the valuable placers on Birch and Miller creeks. 
It will be a matter of extreme difficulty along this 
part of the boundary to prevent smuggling, to dis- 
cover and collect Canadian royalties, and to capture 
criminals except by international cooperation. 



ii8 Golden Alaska. 

CLIMATE, AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH. 

The Weather Bureau has made pubhc a state- 
ment in regard to the chmate of Alaska, which says: 
"The chmates of the coast and the interior of Alaska 
are unlike in many respects, and the differences are 
intensified in this as perhaps in few other countries 
by exceptional physical conditions. The fringe of 
islands that separates the mainland from the Pacific 
Ocean from Dixon Sound north, and also a strip 
of the mainland for possibly twenty miles back from 
the sea, following the sweep of the coast as it curves 
to the northwestward to the western extremity of 
Alaska form a distinct climatic division which may 
be termed temperate Alaska. The temperature rare- 
ly falls to zero; winter does not set in until Dec. i, 
and by the last of May the snow has disappeared ex- 
cept on the mountains. 

"The mean winter temperature of Sitka is 32.5, 
but little less than that of Washington, D. C. The 
rainfall of temperate Alaska is notorious the world 
over, not only as regards the quantity, but also as 
to the manner of its falling, viz. : in long and inces- 
sant rains and drizzles. Cloud and fog naturally 
abound, there being on an average but sixty-six 
clear days in the year. 




GENERAL VIEW OF SILVER BOW BASIN, NEAR JUNEAU. 



Golden Alaska. 121 

"North of the Aleutian Islands the coast cHmate 
becomes more rigorous in winter, but in summer 
the difiference is much less marked. 

"The climate of the interior is one of extreme 
rigor in winter, with a brief but relatively hot sum- 
mer, especially when the sky is free from cloud. 

"In the Klondike region in midwinter the sun 
rises from 9:30 to 10 a. m., and sets from 2 to 3 p. 
m., the total length of daylight being about four 
hours. Remembering that the sun rises but a few 
degrees above the horizon and that it is wholly ob- 
scured on a great many days, the character of the 
winter months may easily be imagined. 

"We are indebted to the United States coast and 
geodetic survey for a series of six months' observa- 
tions on the Yukon, not far from the site of the 
present gold discoveries. The observations were 
made with standard instruments, and are wholly re- 
liable. The mean temperatures of the months Oc- 
tober, 1889, to April, 1890, both inclusive, are as fol- 
lows: October, t,^ degrees; November, 8 degrees; 
December, 11 degrees, below zero; January, 17 be- 
low zero; February, 15 below zero; March, 6 above; 
April 20 above. The daily mean temperature fell 
and remained below the freezing point (32 degrees) 
from Nov. 4, 1889, to April 21, 1890, thus giving 
168 days as the length of the closed season of 1889- 



122 Golden Alaska. 

'90, assuming that outdoor operations are controlled 
by temperature only. The lowest temperatures 
registered during the winter were: Thirty-two de- 
grees below zero in November, 47 below in De- 
cember, 59 below in January, 55 below in February, 
45 below in March, and 26 below in April. 

"The greatest continuous cold occurred in Feb- 
ruary, 1890, when the daily mean for five consecu- 
tive days was 47 degrees below zero. 

"Greater cold than that here noted has been ex- 
perienced in the United States for a very short time, 
but never has it continued so very cold for so long 
a time as in the interior of Alaska. The winter sets 
in as early as September, when snow-storms may 
be expected in the mountains and passes. Head- 
way during one of those storms is impossible, and 
the traveler who is overtaken by one of them is 
indeed fortunate if he escapes with his life. Snow- 
storms of great severity may occur in any month 
from September to May, inclusive. 

"The changes of temperature from winter to sum- 
mer are rapid, owing to the great increase in the 
length of the day. In May the sun rises at about 3 
a. m. and sets about 9 p. m. In June it rises about 
half past I in the morning, and sets at about half 
past 10, giving about twenty hours of daylight and 
diffuse twilight the remainder of the time. 



Golden Alaska. 123 

"The mean summer temperature in the interior 
doubtless ranges between 60 and 70 degrees, ac- 
cording to elevation, being highest in the middle 
and lower Yukon valleys." 

Accurate data of the temperature in the Klon- 
dike district were kept at Fort Constantine last year. 
The temperature first touched zero Nov. 10, and 
the zero weather recorded in the spring was on April 
29. 

Between Dec. 19 and Feb. 6 it never rose above 
zero. The lowest actual point, 65 below, accurred 
on Jan. 27, and on twenty-four days during the win- 
ter the temperature was below 50. 

On March 12 it first rose above the freezing point, 
but no continuous mild weather occurred until May 
4, after which date the temperature during the bal- 
ance of the month frequently rose above 60 de- 
grees. 

The Yukon River froze up on Oct. 28 and broke 
up on May 17. 

The long and severe winter and the frozen moss- 
covered ground are serious obstacles to agriculture 
and stock raising. The former can change but lit- 
tle with coming seasons, but the latter, by gradually 
burning off areas, can be overcome to some eJctent. 
On such burned tracts hardy vegetables have been 
and may be raised, and the area open to such use 



124 Golden Alaska. 

is considerable. Potatoes do well and barley will 
mature a fair crop. 

Live stock may be kept by providing an abund- 
ance of shelter and feed and housing them during 
the winter. In summer an abundance of the finest 
grass pasture can be had, and great quantities of na- 
tural hay can be cut in various places. 

Diseases: In spite of all that is heard in the 
newspapers regarding the healthfulness of the cli- 
mate of Alaska and the upper Yukon, the Census 
Report of Alaska offers its incontestable statistics to 
the effect that the country is not more salubrious, 
nor its people more healthy than could be expected 
in a region of violent climate, where the most ordi- 
nary laws of health remain almost totally ignored. 
From the Government Report we quote the follow- 
ing: 

"Those diseases which are most fatal to life in one 
section of Alaska seem to be applicable to all others. 
In the first place, the native children receive little 
or no care, and for the first few years of their lives 
are more often naked than clothed, at all seasons of 
the year. Consumption is the simple and compre- 
hensive title for the disease which destroys the 
greater number of the people of Alaska. Aluet, In- 
dian and Eskimo suffer from it alike; and all alike 
exhibit the same stolid indifference to its slow and 



Golden Alaska. 127 

fatal progress, make no attempt to ward it off, take 
no special precautions even when the disease reaches 
its climax. 

Next to consumption, the scrofulous diseases, in 
the forms of ulcers, eat into the vitals and destroy 
them until the natives have the appearance of lepers 
to unaccustomed eyes. As a consequence of their 
neglect and the exigencies of the native life, forty or 
fifty years is counted among them as comparatively 
great age, and none are without the ophthalmic dis- 
eases necessarily attendant on existence in smoky 
barabaras. Against snow-blindness the Eskimo 
people use peculiar goggles, but by far the greater 
evil, the smoke poisoning of the ophmalmic nerve 
is neither overcome nor prevented by any of them. 
All traders carry medicine chests and do what they 
can to relieve suffering, but it requires a great deal 
of medicine to make an impression on the native 
constitution, doses being about four times what 
would sufifice an Englishman or American. 



128 Golden Alaska. 

OUTFITS, SUPPLIES, ETC. 

Houses. — Almost every item has been taken into 
consideration by the prospectors starting out to face 
an Alaskan winter except the item of shelter when 
they shall have put their boats in winter dock. The 
result will be that many hundreds will find them- 
selves in the bleak region w'ith plenty of money and 
victuals, but insufficient protection from the cold 
weather. From accounts that have come from 
Alaska and British Columbia, there are more men 
there skilled in digging and bookkeeping than in 
carpentry, and more picks and shovels than axes 
and planes. With the arrival of parties that have 
lately gone to the headwaters of the Yukon, there 
will necessarily be an immense demand for houses, 
for without them the miners will freeze. This mat- 
ter is beginning to receive attention in San Fran- 
cisco and Seattle, and preparations are now under 
way to provide gold seekers with houses. 

Within a week negotiations have been conducted 
between parties in San Francisco and this city for 
the shipment of entire houses to the gold re- 
gions. The houses will be constructed in sections, 
so that they may be carried easily in boats up the 
Yukon or packed on sleds and carried through the 
rough country in baggage trains. A New York 



Golden Alaska. 131 

firm which makes a specialty of such houses has re- 
ceived orders for as many as can be sent there. 

No tents are used in winter, as they become coated 
with ice from the breath of the sleepers and are also 
apt to take fire. 

Clothing for Men. — A year's supply of winter 
clothing ought be taken, especial pains being taken 
to supply plenty of warm, durable underwear. Old- 
timers in the country wear in winter a coat or blouse 
of dressed deer skin, with the hair on, coming down 
to the knees and held by a belt round the waist. It 
has a hood which may be thrown back on the 
shoulders when not needed. This shirt is trimmed 
with white deerskin or wolfskin, while those worn 
in extreme weather are often lined with fur. Next 
in importance to them are the torbassa or Eskimo 
boots. These are of reindeer skin, taken from the 
legs, where the hair is short, smooth and stifif. These 
are sewed together to make the tops of the boots 
which come up nearly to the knee, where they are 
tied. The sole is of sealskin, turned. over at heel 
and toe and gathered up so as to protect those 
parts and then brought up on each side. They are 
made much larger than the foot and are worn with 
a pad of dr}- grass which, folded to fit the sole, 
thickens the boot and forms an additional protection 
to the foot. A pair of strings tied about the ankle 



132 GoLDEK Alaska. 

from either side complete a covering admirably 
adapted to the necessities of winter travel. If the 
newcomer can get such garments as these he will 
be well provided against winter rigors. 

Women going to the mines are advised to take 
two pairs of extra heavy all-wool blankets, one small 
pillow, one fur robe, one warm shawl, one fur coat, 
easy fitting; three warm woollen dresses, with com- 
fortable bodices and shirts knee length, flannel-lined 
preferable; three pairs of knickers or bloomers to 
match the dresses, three suits of heavy all-wool un- 
derwear, three warm flannel night dresses, four 
pairs of knitted woollen stockings, one pair of rub- 
ber boots, three gingham aprons that reach from 
neck to knees, small roll of flannel for insoles, wrap- 
ping the feet and bandages; a sewing kit, such toilet 
articles as are absolutely necessary, including some 
skin unguent to protect the face from the icy cold, 
two light blouses or shirt waists for summer wear, 
one oilskin blanket to wrap her effects in, to be 
secured at Juneau or St. Michael; one fur cape, two 
pairs of fur gloves, two pairs of surseal moccasins, 
two i^airs of muclucs — wet weather moccasins. 

She wears what she pleases en route to Juneau or 
St. Michael, and when she makes her start for the 
tliggings she lays aside every civilized traveling 
garb, including shoes and stays, until she comes out. 



Golden Alaska. 135 

Instead of carrying the fur robe, fur coat and rub- 
ber boots along, she can get them on entering Alas- 
ka, but the experienced ones say, take them along. 
Leggings and shoes are not so safe nor desirable as 
the moccasins. A trunk is not the thing to trans- 
port baggage in. It is much better in a pack, with 
the oilskin cover well tied on. The things to add 
that are useful, but not absolutely necessary, are 
chocolate, coffee and the smaller light luxuries. 

Beds are made on a platform raised a few feet 
from the floor, and about seven feet wide. Often 
consists of a raindeer skin with the hair on and one 
end sewn up so as to make a sort of bag to put 
the feet in. A pillow of wild goose feathers, and a 
pair of blankets. Sheets, which have been un- 
known heretofore, may become essential, but such 
a conventionality as a counterpane would better be 
left behind. 

Provisions. — There was a report that Canadian 
mounted police would guard the passes during the 
latter part of the summer of 1897 and refuse admis- 
sion to anyone who did not bring a year's provisions 
with him. This has been estimated as weighing 
1,800 pounds. Whether this is true or not, it is cer- 
tain that no one should go into the Yukon country 
without taking a large supply of food, and taking 
it from his starting-point. Whatever is the most 



136 Golden Alaska. 

condensed and nutritious is the cheapest, and this 
should be collected with great care. There is well- 
grounded fear that famine may overtake all the 
camps there before the opening of navigation in the 
spring. Newspapers on August 2nd reported agents 
of the Alaska Commercial Company as saying: 

"We shall refuse to take passengers at all in our 
next steamer. We could sell every berth at the 
price we have been asking — $250, as against $120 
last spring — but we shall not sell one. We shall 
fill up with provisions, and I have no doubt the 
Pacific Coast Company will do the same. We are 
afraid. Those who are mad to get to the diggings 
will probably be able to get transportation by char- 
tering tramp steamers, and there is a serious risk 
that there will not be food enough for them at Ju- 
neau or on the Yukon. After the season closes it 
will be next to impossible to get supplies into the 
Yukon country, and a large proportion of the gold 
seekers may starve to death. That would be an 
ominous beginning for the new camp. Alaska is 
not like California or Australia or South Africa. It 
produces nothing. When the supplies from out- 
side arc exhausted, famine must follow — to what de- 
gree no one can tell." 

It was further understood at this date that there 
are 2,000 tons of food at St. Michael, and the Alaska 



Golden Alaska. 139 

Company has three large and three small steamers 
to carry it up river. It is hard to ascertain how 
much there is at Juneau; it is vaguely stated that 
there are 5,000 tons. At a pinch steamers might 
work their way for several months to come through 
the ice to that port from Seattle, which is only 
three days distant. But it may be nip and tuck if 
there is any rush of gold seekers from the East. 

Alaskan Mails. — Between Seattle and Sitka the 
mail steamers ply regularly. On the City of To- 
peka there has been established a regular sea post- 
office service. W. R. Curtis is the clerk in charge. 
Between Sitka and Juneau there is a closed pouch 
steamboat service. Seattle makes up closed pouches 
for Douglas, Fort Wrangel, Juneau, Killisnoo, Ket- 
chikan, Mary Island, Sitka, and Metlakatlah. Con- 
necting at Sitka is other sea service between that 
point and Unalaska, 1,400 miles to the west. This 
service consists of one trip a month between Sitka 
and Unalaska from April to October and leaves Sit- 
ka immediately upon arrival of the mails from Seat- 
tle. Captain J. E. Hanson is acting clerk. From 
Unalaska the mails are dispatched to St. Michael 
and thence to points on the Yukon. 

The Postoffice department has perfected not only 
a summer but a winter star route service between 
Juneau and Circle City. The route is overland and 



140 Golden Alaska. 

by boats and rafts over the lakes and down the Yu- 
kon, and is 900 miles long. A Chicago man named 
Beddoe carries the summer mail, making five trips 
between June and November, and is paid $500 a 
trip. Two Juneau men, Frank Corwin and Albert 
Hayes, operate the winter service and draw for each 
round trip $1,700 in gold. About 1,200 letters are 
carried on each trip. Tlie cost of forwarding let- 
ters from Circle City to Dawson City is one dollar 
for each letter and two for each paper, the mails 
being sent over once a month. The Chilkoot Pass 
is crossed with the mail by means of Indian car- 
riers. On the previous trips the carriers, after fin- 
ishing the pass, built their boats, but they now have 
their own to pass the lakes and the Lewes River. 

In the winter transportation is carried on by means 
of dogsleds, and it is hoped that under the present 
contracts there will be no stoppage, no matter how 
low the temperature may go. The contractor has 
reported that he was sending a boat, in sections, 
by way of St. Michael, up the Yukon River, to be 
used on the waterway of the route, and it is thought 
much time will be saved by this, as formerly it 
was necessary for the carriers to stop and build 
boats or rafts to pass the lakes. 

Contracts have been made with two steamboat 
companies for two trips from Seattle to St. Michael. 



Golden Alaska 143 

When the steamers reach St. Michael, the mail will 
be transferred to the flat-bottomed boats running 
up the Yukon as far as Circle City. It is believed 
the boats now run further up. 

The contracts for the overland route call for only 
first-class matter, whereas the steamers in summer 
carry everything, up to five tons, each trip. 

Sledges and Dogs. — The sleds are heavy and shod 
with bone sawed from the upper edge of the jaw of 
the bowright whale. The rest of the sled is of 
spruce and will carry from six to eight hundred 
pounds. The sleds used in the interior are lighter 
and differently constructed. They consist of a nar- 
row box four feet long, the front half being covered 
or boxed in, mounted on a floor eight feet long rest- 
ing on runners. In this box the passenger sits, 
wrapped in rabbit skins so that he can hardly move, 
his head and shoulders only projecting. In front 
and behind and on top of the box is placed all the 
luggage, covered with canvas and securely lashed, 
to withstand all the jolting and possible upsets, and 
our snow shoes within easy reach. 

An important item is the dog-whip, terrible to the 
dog if used by a skillful hand and terrible to the 
user if he be a novice; for he is sure to half strangle 
himself or to hurt his own face with the business 
end of the lash. The whip T measured had a handle 



144 Golden Alaska. 

nine inches long and lash thirty feet, and weighed 
four pounds. The lash was of folded and plaited 
seal hide, and for five feet from the handle measured 
five inches round, then for fourteen feet it gradually 
tapered ofi, ending in a single thong half an inch 
thick and eleven feet long. Wonderful the dex- 
terity with which a driver can pick out a dog and 
almost a spot on a dog with this lash. The lash 
must be trailing at full length behind, when a jerk 
and turn of the wrist causes it to fly forward, the 
thick part first, and the tapering end continuing 
the motion till it is at, full length in front, and the 
lash making the fur fly from the victim. But often 
it is made to crack over the heads of the dogs as a 
warning. 

The eleven dogs were harnessed to the front of 
the sled, each by a separate thong of seal hide, all 
of different lengths, fastened to a light canvas har- 
ness. The nearest dog was about fifteen feet from 
the sled, and the leader, with bells on her, about 
fifty feet, the thongs thus increasing in length by 
about three feet. When the going is good the dogs 
spread out like the fingers of a hand, but when the 
snow is deep they fall into each other's tracks in 
almost single file. As they continually cross and 
recross each other, the thongs get gradually plaited 
almost up to the rearmost dog, when a halt is called, 




A TEAM OF DOGS AND DOG SLEDGES. 



Golden Alaska. 147 

the dogs are made to lie down, and the driver care- 
fully disentangles them, taking Care that no dog 
gets away meanwhile. They are guided by the 
voice,, using "husky," that is, Eskimo words: 
"Owk," go to the right; "arrah," to the left, and 
"holt," straight on. But often one of the men must 
run ahead on snowshoes for the dogs to follow him. 

The dogs are of all colors, somewhat the height 
of the Newfoundland, but with shorter legs. The 
usual number is from five to seven, according to the 
load. 

List of prices that have been current in Dawson 
City during 1897: 

Flour, per 100 lbs $12.00 to $120.00 

Moose ham, per lb i.oo to 2.00 

Caribou meat, lb 65 

Beans, per lb 10 

Rice, per lb 25 to .75 

Sugar, per lb 25 

Bacon, per lb 40 to .80 

Butter, per roll 1.50 to 2.50 

Eggs, per doz 1.50 to 3.00 

Better eggs, doz 2.00 

Salmon, each i.oo to 1.50 

Potatoes, per lb 25 

Turnips, per lb 15 

Tea, per lb i.oo to 3.00 

Cofifee, per lb 50 to 2.25 

Dried fruits, per lb 35 



148 Golden Alaska. 

Canned fruits • 50 to 2.25 

Lemons, each 20 to ,25 

Oranges, each 50 

Tobacco, per lb 1.50 to 2.00 

Liquors, per drink 53 

Shovels 2.50 to 18.00 

Picks 5.00 to 7.00 

Coal oil, per gal i.oo to 2.50 

Overalls 1.50 

Underwear, per suit 5.00 to 7.50 

Shoes 5.00 to 8.00 

Rubber boots 1500 to 18.00 

Based on supply and demand the above quoted 
prices may vary several hundred per cent, on some 
articles at any time. 

Fare to Seattle by way of Northern Pacific, $81.50. 

Fee for Pullman sleeper, $20.50. 

Fee for tourist sleeper, run only west of St. 
Paul, $55. 

Meals served in dining car for entire trip, $16. 

Meals are served at -stations along the route a la 
carte. 

Distance from New York to Seattle, 3,290 miles. 

Days required to make the journey, about six. 

Fare for steamer from Seattle to Juneau, includ- 
ing cabin and meals, $35. 

Days, Seattle to Juneau, about five. 

Number of miles from Seattle to Juneau, 725. 



Golden Alaska. 149 

Cost of living in Juneau, about $3 per day. 

Distance on Lynn Canal to Healey's Store, 
steamboat, seventy-five miles. 

Number of days. New York to Healey's Store, 
twelve. 

Cost of complete outfit for overland journey, 
about $150. 

Cost of provisions for one year, about $200. 

Cost of dogs, sled and outfit, about $150. 

Steamer leaves Seattle once a week. 

Best time to start is early in the Spring. 

Total cost of trip, New York to Klondike, about 
$667. 

Number of days required for journey, New York 
to Klondike, thirty-six to forty. 

Total distance. New York to the mines at Klon- 
dike, 4,650 miles. 




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6-0 'BB 

■8-0 '! 

•R-a 

•6-CI 
) 'nouBi 
OI-V 'ir 

'JJXtpBU 

S-0 'Sin 

f^O '591 

■p9num<C^gpy. 



loi ""e-a 'sptiii 

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'65 



'^letrest 1] 



Seventh, or Arctic dis- 

trict 8,222 

Total 81,795 



Capes 
and Points. 

Addington, C-9. 
AUtak, C-5. 
Anchor, C-5. 
Anxiety, A-6. 
Banlis, 0-5. 
Barnabas, C-5. 
Barrow, A-4. 
Bartolome, C-9. 
Becher, A-6. 
Beechey, A-6. 
Belcher, A-3. 
Blaclc, C-5. 
Blossom, A-8. 
Campbell, B-6. 
Chiniuk. C-5. 
Chitnak, B-1. 
Christy, A-4. 
Cleare. C-6. 
Collie, A-3. 
Constantine, C-4. 
Cross, C-8. 
Current, C-5. 
Dall, B-2. 
Danby, B-S. 
Denbigh, B-3. 
Douglas, B-2. 
Douglas, C-5. 
Dyer, A-2. 
Dyer, B-2. 
Edward, C-8. 
Elizabeth, C-6. 
Eroline, C-4. 
Espenberg, A-8. 
Etolin, B-2. 
Fairweather, C-8. 
Foggy, C-4. 
Franldin, A-3. 
Glaeenap, C-S. 
Grenville, C-5. 



ii.anaraK, ^^- . 
Kurliik, C-5. tains. 
Kavakliiit, C , ^ 
Kh'ituk, D-3kCle, C-3. 
Kni8(!ii8tern 
Kupreanof, (■• 
Lapin, D-8. *• 
Lay, A-3. 
Lazarcff, D-! 
Leontovich, 
Lewie, A-S. t A-3. 
Lisbiinie, A-, 
Low, C-5. -o- 
Lowenstem, 
Lutke. D-3. _ 
Manby, C-7. *-5- 
Manning, A- 
Martin, A-7. 
Martin. C-6. 
Mencliikof, (8, A-8. 
Muzon, D-9. 
Narrow, C-5-J- 
Newenham, -'*. 
Nome, B--2. A-3. 

Ocean, C-7. B-'- 

Ommaney, Ct'-4. 

Pankoff, U-;r 

Peirce, C-3 „ „ 

Pellew, B-6. C-8. 

Pillar, C-5. .C-8. 

Pitt, A-5. A-7. 

Prince of W.-4. 

Providence, 

Puget, C-6. '• 

Resnrrectio] 

Rodlcnofl", C . 

Rodney, B--- 

Romauof, B; 

Romanzof, ]< • 

Saritchey, D*-". 

Seniavin, C- 

Seppingp, A C-3. 

Sitkagi. C-7.:ano, D-2. 

Smith, B-2. 

Spencer, A-5 

Spencer, C-8 

St. Augustii^ "■^■ 

St. Eliaa, C-'"o. C-3. 

St. Hermoge 



* Money Order Offices. ^ Post Offices 



(. Districts. 

Flrrt, or HouthoiwUim ''"''' 

„ fllHlrlct unaH 

fiecond, or Kudluk dl«. 

Irlct H 11Q 

Thlrfl, or Unulonka dli. 

Crict. ,, oofli 

PouMli or NuBhttgak 

dlnlrlot. ... e 7tin 

Fifth, OP Ku.kiiwim '™ 
oi..{'"i!:'?-'.„V„-..;,-,:;;,v, ^^^ 

BoraDtli, or Arotlo dl«- 

trlct 8,m 

TDt»l Ol.TO 



Capes 
and Points. 

AddlnKlon, i.'O. 
Alltnk, 0-ft 
Anobor, Q S. 
Annety, AO. 
BiniiB, <:•». 
Dnr^almn, (Ml. 
Durmw, A-t. 
Bkrtolnmu, 0-«. 
Boofcpr, A-«. 
lloootwy, A-0. 
llololii^r, All. 
Ultok, 04. 
Ulnaiiin, A'8. 
Onii|)l)i.n,H-0. 
OlilAiilt. C'ti. 
OhllDiik, D-l 
Chrfty, A.4. 
Olontc C'D. 
Oolltt). A-». 
OonnniiUno, 0-4. 
OroM, 0-8. 
Curicnt., 0-6 
DiiU, 11 VS. 
Diiiiby, 11-a. 
I)oiiblK><.U-». 

DoiiKliiH, Il-a. 

DougluK, C-6. 

Dyi*. A «. 

Dyor. 11 «. 

Bdwftrd, CB. 

Bllr.tliotll, O'D. 

Brolliu', <.'-4. 

UHpeiiltorn, A'S. 

Ittoilii, lia. 

FidrwoiUher, 0.8. 

Fmnkllii, A a. 

()1|\HM1I11I, t'.*. 
Gnmvlllo, 0-6. 



ALASKA. 

)Lstricts, Oapes and Points, Islands, Lakes, Mountains, Rivers, and To-^-ns, 



daiiu and I'olnU—wmtlnutd. 

(iriniii, A-r. 

(IlllrOHH, l(.(i, 
llalkcitt, A-5. 
Ilurbor, 0*9 
lllncliiiibiook, O-O. 
JIopo, A-2. 
Icy, A-.'l. 
Icy, (;-8. 
iKVllk, V.i. 
Iltll, 0-4. 
lUollli, 0^ 



Kavalllliil, (M. 
Kh'ltiik, 1).8 
KrUKi'iiHtcirn] A-S. 
Kiipruanuf, v'"l. 
l;n|)lii, 1)11. ^ 
Lay, A4, 
LiiKurulT. 04. 
l.ooiilovlcb, O-S. 
I,ow1h, A-a. 
IJaliiiriii', A-3. 
l.iiw, (.'-6. 
LDWi'iinluni, A->. 
I,ulki\ l)-.1. 
Sliinliy, C'-7. 
JlaniiliiK, A-7. 
Miiillii, A-?, 
Murllri. C-O. 
Moilclilliof, 0^. 
Miutrai, M. 
Narrow, 0.6. 
Nowunhnm, 0-S. 
Nomi', B-l 
Oconii, C'.7. 
Oinniallpy, O-tl. 
raiikolI,l).,1. 
I'ulrcu, M 
Pollew, B.O. 
I'lllnr, t'-li. 
Pill, A-B. 

I'rinw of Wftlei, A* 
rrovldmcisO-*. 
I'liKOl, CII. 
Rwurrccllon, 0-8. 
l!o(lliiioll',C'-8. 
Ho.liH'v, Il-'3. 
liniiiaiiof.B* 
H..iniiiiiot, 11-8. 
Sarllcluiy, U-S. 
Suulavlu, C.S. 

SuilUl, S-i, 

itiuo, n-9. 
iogcna*, C-S. 



Capa and Poinfs—e&ntiniud. 

Stcop, C-S. 

Strogonof, C'-4. 

Huckling, C-T. 

Tangent, A-5. 

TliompHon, A-2. 

Tolmol, H-8. 

TonkI, 0-5. 

Trinity, (.'-S. 

Two lleudcd, C-5. 

Ugal. C.'-5. 

Unull^haKVBk, C-4. 



UT« l f. O ' 
Vancouver, 
West, UI. 

Yaktau, C-7. 



B-2. 



Islands. 

Adakh, A-IO. 
Admiralty, C-O. 
AfoRunr, C-5. 
Agattu, A'S. 
Au'lilviik, 0-4. 
Akuii, U-S!. 
Akuliin, D-a. 
Aloutlini, A-8. 
Aniak, C-.l. 
Ainaou, D-3, 
Aiuatlguuk, A-9, 
Amatiill, C-6. 
Auicbitkn, A-9. 
Amiln. A-IU. 
Amukta, A-lO, 
Andreanni', A-10. 
Androniin, C-l. 
Aniii'li', 1)-U. 
Anowlli, ('-4, 
AtUa, A-10. 
Atkullk, C-J. 
Attn, A-8. 
AuguHtUlc, C-5. 
Avnntjniak, D-i. 
Ban, C-5. 
Baranof, C-9. 
Barron, t.'-S. 
Barter, A-". 
BcBlior,., B-3. 
lliu nioMiodc, A-9. 

Bis K.M.iUHllI, C-4. 

Bhn, l).:i. 
DIorha, A-11. 
BnUUr, A-9. 
Ckankllut, C-4. 
Chornabiira, l)-3. 
Cberuobour, D-S. 
Chlacbl, C-4. 
Chlchajcol, 0-3. 
Chlrlkof, C-4. 
Chlswoll, C-C. 



> MoHoyOrdorOmow. IPoKOBcnot loo»t«d onM»p. 



Idnndt-corUlnutd. 
Chnwiet, C4. 
ChuBatz. C-B. 
ChiiKliiaili'k. A-10. 
Cbugiil. A-lO.^ __ 
Coroiiali 
Dull, IM 




Etolin, C-9. 
FlaxmaD, A-6. 
Forreater, D-9. 
Oarelol, A-9. 
GeMc, C-8. 
Great Sitkin, A-10. 



Gn 



B-8. 



HaueineiBler, C-3. 
Ball. 1-1. 
UasBler, C-9. 
Hawkin, B-fi. 
Hazy, 0-8. 
Hincblnbrook, B-6. 
Igltkln. A-lO. 
Jacob, O-'l. 
Kadmk, C-5. 
Kagala-^ka, A-10. 
Karamil. A II. 
Kalgin, B-S. 
KanuKu, A-9. 
KatcckUuk, C-l. 
KaTaIgn, A-9. 
Kayak, (3-7. 
KhoiidlakoS, C-S. 
IChuiidoubiue, C-3. 
Kigalgin, A-11. 
KIiik,TB-2. , 
Kiska. A-»/- ■ 
KlukdairlCC-l. 
Knights. B-B- 
Korovin. 0-1. 
Klliu, C-9. 
Knpreanof, C-9. 
Llttli- Diomode, A-a. 
Little Kunilishl, C-4. 
Little Sitkin, A-O. 
Marnml, Ch. 
Mldillelon,C-0. 
Mltkof, C-9. 
Mltrofania. &4. 
Montagu. C-6. 
Nagai. 4. 
Nukchamlk, C-4. 
Near. A-8. 
Nelson. 8-8. 
North, D-9. 
Nuuivak, B-S. 
Okolnoi, C-3. 
Otter. C-2. 



Inlands— continued. 
Paul, C-4. 
Pinnacle, B-1. 
Pribiiof, C-2. 
Prince of Wales, C-9. 
Punuk, B-2. 
Pyc, C-5. 
Kut, A-9. 

Revillaaigedo, C-9. 
Sand. B-2. 
Sannak. D-3. 
Seal. C-4. 



a i; gii!i ii i, A- IO . 

Semjebi. A-8. 
Semidi. 0-4. 
Seniisopochnol, A-9. 
Shumagin, C-4. 
Shuyak, C-5. 
Sinieoiiof, n-4. 
Sitkalidak, C-5. 
Sitkinuk, C-5. 
Sledge, B-3. 
South, C-4. 
Spruce, C-5. 
8t. George, C-2. 
St. Lawrence, B-2. 
St. Matthew, B-I. 
St. Michael, B-S. 
St. Paul, C-2. 
Stephens, D-9. 
Stuart, B-3. 
Sutwik, CA. 
Tagalakh, A-IO. 
Tauaga, A-9. 
Tigalda, D-3. 
Trinity Is., C-5. 
Tugidak, 0-5. 
Ugamok, D-2. 
Ufak, A-9. 
Dliaga, A-11. 
Umga, D-3. 
Umnak, A-11. 
Dnalaska, D-2. 
Uuavikshak, C-4. 
Unga, C-3. 
Ummak, D-3. 
Ushugat, C-5. 
Walros, C-2. 
Wooded Is., C-8. 
Wossnessenski, C-3. 
Wrangell, C-9. 
Wrigham, C-7. 
Yakobi, C-8. 
Yunaska, A-IO. 
Zaiembo, C-9. 
Zayas, D-9. 



Lakes. 



Lakes— conilrmtd. 
[liamna, C-5. 
Imuruk, B-2. 
Mentasta, B-7. 
Naknek, C-4. 
Nushagak, B-4. 
Rat, A-7. 
Selawik, A-3. 
Skillokh, B-6. 
Tasekpak, A-5. 
Tuelumena, B-5. 
Walker, A-5. 



Mountains. 

Aghileen Pinnacle, C-3. 
Alaskan, B-5. 
Asses Ears, A-3. 
Black Peak, C-4. 
Boundary, A-7. 
British, A-7. 
Cathul, A-7. 
Deviation Peak, A-3. 



Dev 



, A-3. 



Four Peaked, C-5. 
Franklin, A-6. 
Gold, A-5. 
Ilinnina Peak, B-5. 
Jade. -\-4. 
Kayuh, B-4. 
Liousliead, C-9. 
Lower Ramparts, A-6. 
Makushin, l)-2. 
Miles Glacier, B-7. 
Mt. Becharof, C-4. 
Ml. Bendeleben, A-3. 
Mt. Blackburn, B-7. 
Mt. Cliiginagar, C-4. 
Sit. Criflon, C-8. 
Mt. Drum, B-6. 
Mt. Edgecumbe, C-8. 
Mt Falrweather, C-8. 
Mt. tireeuciugh, A-7. 
Mt. llouonita, B-4. 
Mt, Kellv, A-3. 
Mt. Kim"ball, B-7. 
Mt. Lituya, C-8. 
Mt. Olai, 0-4. 
Mt. Sanford, B-7. 
Mt. Tillman, B-7. 
Mt. Wrangel. B-7. 
Mulgrave Hills, A-3. 
Palisades. A-5. 
Pavloa Volcano, C-3. 
Progroninia Volcano, D-2 
Rampart, .V5. 
Ratzel. A-". 
Red. A-5. 

Redoubt Volcano, B-5. 
Shlslialdin Volcano, C-3. 
Snow, A-5. 
Spirit, B-7- 



Mountains — contin^ud. 
Tanana Hills, A-6. 
Veevidotf Volcano, A-ll. 
Yukon Hilla, A-4. 



Rivers. 



Allenkakat, A-5. 
Ambler, A-4. 
Anvik, B-3. 
Azoon, B-3. 
Bac7.akakat, A-fi. 
BTg^BnrcX^A^TT 
Black, B-3. 
Bradley, B-6. 
Bremner, B-6. 
Bucklaud, A-3. 
Cantwell, B-6. 
Chilkat. 
Chisana, B-7. 
Chitslechina, B-6. 
Chittyna. B-7. 
Chittyetone, B-7. 
Chnlltua, B-4. 
Colville, A-5. 
Copper, B-6. 
Cutler, A-4. 
Daklikakat, A-4. 
Dall, A-5. 
Delta, B-6. 
Doggetlooscat, A-4 
Dugan, B-6 
Fickott, A-5. 
Fish, A-3. 
Forty-mile, B-7. 
Gakona, B-6. 
Gersde, B-6. 
Goodpasler, B-6. 
Hokuchatua, A-4. 
Husstiak.'ltua, A-4. 
Ikpikpung, A-5. 
Inglisalik, A-4. 
Innoko, B-4. 
Ippewik, A-3. 
Johnson, B-6. 
Kaknu, B-5. 
Kalucua, B-7. 
Kandik, A-T. 
Karluk, C-5. 
Kashiinik, B-3. 
Kassilof, B-5 
Kaviavazak, A-3. 
Kayuh, B-4. 
Kevwieek, A-3. 
Kinak, B-3. 
Klanarchargat, A-6. 
Klatena, B-6. 
Klatsutukakat, B-5 
Klawasiua. B-6. 
Knik, B-6. 
Koo. A-4. 
Kookpuk, A-3. 



Rivers — continued, 
Kowak, A-4. 
Koyuk, A-3. 
Koyukuk, A-5. 
Kuahroo, A-4. 
Kuguklik, C-3. 
Kakpowruk, A-3. 
Kulichavak, B-3. 
Kuskokwim, B-S- 
Kvichak, 0-4. 
Liebigitag'a, B-8. 
Little Black. A-7. 



Lovene, ii-b. 
Marokinak, B-3. 
Meade, A-4. 
Melozikakat, A-5. 
Naknek, C-4. 
Noatak, A-3. 
Nushagak, C-4. 
Pitmegea, A-3. 
Porcupine, A-7. 
Ray, A-5. 
Robertson, B-6. 
Salmon, A-7. 
Selawik, A-4. 
Slana, BO. 
Soonkakat, B-4. 
Stikine, C-9. 
Sucker, A-7. 
Sushitna, B-6. 
Taclat, B-5. 
Tahkandik, A-7. 
Tanana, B-6. 
Tasnioio, B-6. 
Tatotliudu, B-7. 
Tazlina, B-6. 
Teikbell, B-6. 
Traodee, A-7. 
Tokai, B-7. 
Tovikakat, A-5. 
Ugaguk, C-4. 
Ugashik, C-4. 
Unalaklik, B-4. 
Volkmar, B-6. 
White, B-7. 
Whymper, A-6. 
Wollek, A-3. 
Yukon, B-3. 



Towns. Pop. 



Afognak, C-5... 
Alaganik, B-6 . 
Anagnak, C-4.. 

Anvik, B-3 

Attanak, A-4. .. 
Attenmul, A-4 . 
Bclkoffski, D-3. 
Belle Isle, B-8.. 
Cape Sabine, A-2 
Chilkat, C-8 



Towns— contlnutd . Po 

Douglaa,C-9 40 

Dyea ^ 

Egowik,B-3 

Fort -Mesander, C-4 

Fort Audreafskl, B-8 '10 

Fort Cudahy, B-8 

FortGet rhere, 88 

Fortllealy, B-5 

Port Keuai. 8-5 

Fort St. iMirhaels, B-S.... 101 

Port Weare. A 7. ., ~ ' 

Tort Wrangel, C-9 ...... Sit 

lEaglk,C-4 60 

Ikogmut Mission, B-4. . . . 140 

Inltkllly, A-2 

Jackson, D-9 105 

Juneau, C-9 * 1263 

Kaguyak, C-5 119 

Kaltig, B-4 

Karluk, C-5 1123 

Katnlal, C-4 

Ketchikan, C-9 

Killifliioo, C-9 79 

Kipuiak, B-8 

KIttwock, C-9 287 

Kodiuk, C-5 • 495 

KogBlung,C-4 133 

Kutllk, B-3 81 

Leather Village, B-4 

Loring,C-9 200 

Mary Island, D-9 

MeUakahllal 

Mitchell, A-8 838 

Morzhovol, D-3 68 

Nig-a-lek, A-6 

Nikolski, A-11 

Nulalo, B-4 118 

Nuehugak, CA 268 

Old Morzhovol, C-S 

Orea, B-6 

Ounalaska, A-11 

Paslolik, B-3 lis 

Redoubt KolmakoS, B-4 

Sandpolnl, C-3 

Seward, C-5 

Shageluk. B-8 

Shakan. (i-9 

Sbaktolik, B-S 

Sitka, 08 * 1190 

St. Orlovsk, C-5 

Sntkum, C-4 

Suworof, C-4 

Taku, C-9 

Tikchik, B-4 

Ukak.O -4 

Unalaklik, B-3 176 

Unalaska, D-2 »17 

Unga, C-3 169 

Village, 0-4 

Wrangel, C-9 

Takltttl,C-8 



Addenda. 

Pop. 

Weare. B 5 

Circle City, B 7 

Dawson. B 7 

Klondvke Elver, B 8 

Klondvke District, B8 .. 
Dyea, 08 



Black, B-3. 
Bradley, B-6. 
Bremner, B-6. 
Buckland, A-3. 
Cantwtll, B-6. 
Chilkat. 
Chisaiia, B-7. 
Chitslechina, B-6. 
Chittyua. B-~. 
Chittyslone, B-7. 
Chnhtna, B-4. 
Colvillt;, A-5. 
Copper, B-6. 
Cutler, A-4 
Daklikakat, A-4. 
Dall, A 5. 
Delta, B-6. 
Doggetlooscat, A-4 
Dugan, B-6 
Fickett, A-5. 
Fish. A-3. 
Fort.y-ntile, B-7. 
Gakona. B-6. 
Gersde, B-6. 
Goodpaster, B-6. 
Hokuchatna, A-4. 
Husstiakatna, A-4. 
Ikpikpung, A-5. 
Inglixaiik, A-4. 
Innoko, B-4. 
Ippewik, A-3. 
Jotinson, B-6. 
Kaknu, B-5. 
Kaiucua, B-7. 
Kandik, A -7. 
Karluk, C-5. 
Kashunik, B-3. 
Kassilof, B-5 
Kaviavazak, A-3. 
Kayuh, B-4. 
Kevwleek, A-3. 
Kinak, B-3. 
Klanarchargat, A-6. 
Klatena, B-6. 
Klateutakakat, B-5 
KlawasiQa. B-6. 
Knik, B-6. 
Koo, A-4. 
Kookpuk, A-3. 



Marokinak, B-3. 
Meade, A-4. 
Melozikakat, A-5. 
Naknek, C-4. 
Noatiik, A-3. 
Nushagak, 0-4. 
Pitmegea, A-3. 
Porcupine, A-7. 
Ray, A-5. 
Robertson, B-6. 
Salmon, A-7. 
Selawik, A-4. 
Slana, B-6. 
Soonkakat, B-4. 
Stikine, C-9. 
Sucker, A-7. 
Sushitna, B-6. 
Taclat, B-5. 
Tahkandik, A-7. 
Tanaua, B-6. 
Tasnioio, B-6. 
Tatotliudu, B-7. 
Tazlina, B-6. 
Teikhell, B-6. , 

Traodee, A-7. 
Tokai. B-7. 
Tovikakat, A-5. 
Ugaguk, C-4. 
Ugashik, C-4. 
Unalaklik, B-4. 
Volkmar, B-6. 
White, B-7. 
Whymper, A-6. 
Woliek, A-3. 
Yukon, B-3. 

Towns. Pop. 

Afognak, C-5 409 

Alaganik, B-6 48 

Anagnak, C-4 

Anvik, B-3 191 

Attanak, A-4 

Attenmut, A-4 

Belkofifski, D-3 185 

Belle Isle, B-8 

Cape Sabine, A-2 

Chilkat, C-8 158 



Igagik, C-4 60 

Ikogmut Mission, B-4 140 

Initkillv, A-2 

Jackson, D-9 106 

Juneau, C-9 * 1858 

Kaguyak, C-5 112 

Kaltig, B-4 

Karluk, C-5 1123 

Eatniai, C-4 

Ketchikan, C-9 

Killisnoo, C-9 79 

Kipmak, B-3. 

Klawock, C-9 287 

Kodiak, C-5 * 495 

Koggiung, C-4 133 

Kutlik, B-3 31 

Leather Village, B-4 

Loring, C-9 200 

Mary Island, D-9 

Metlakahtlaf 

Mitchell, A-8 288 

Morzhovoi, D-3 68 

Nig-a-lek, A-6 

Nikolski, A-11 

Nulato, B-4 118 

Nushagak, C-4 268 

Old Morzhovoi, C-3 

Orca, B-6 

Ounalaska, A-11 

Pastolik, B-3 118 

Redoubt KolmakoflE, B-4 

Sandpoint, C-3 

Sew ard, C-5 

Shageluk, B-3 

Shakan. C-9 

Shaktolik, B-3 

Sitka. C8 * 1190 

St. Orlovsk, C-5 

Sntkiim, C-4 

Suworof, C-4 

Taku, C-9 

Tikchik, B-4 

Ukak, C-4 

Unalaklik, B-3 175 

Unalaska, D-2 817 

Unga, C-3 159 

Village, C-4 

Wrangel, C-9 

Yakitat, C-8 



Addenda. 

Pop. 

Weare, B 5 

Circle City, B 7 

Dawson, B 7 

Klondyke River, B 8 

Klondyke District, B 8 . . 
Dyea,C8 



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